


Bad Company

by Bitumz



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mandalorian Culture, Nightmares, Past Abuse, Plot, Slow Burn, Soft Din Djarin, plot?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 61,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21869056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitumz/pseuds/Bitumz
Summary: Decent work is hard for the Mandalorian to find after his fiery resignation from the guild. Desperation is a new and heavy thing on his shoulders until he is offered the largest bounty of his career.But this one had already seen glimpses of hell, long before he'd crossed her path in legend or person.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Original Female Character(s), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader
Comments: 143
Kudos: 636





	1. The Hunt

**Author's Note:**

> All right, here we go! This is my first ever reader insertion/OC style fic, but my hell brain won't let me rest until I torture Din, as he and his adorable son have entirely taken over my life. Here's my attempt at it and I would very much love to know what you think along the way!  
> Tumblr: @mandotrash

_Rebel souls_  
_deserters we've been called,_  
_chose a gun_  
_and threw away the song_

_Now these towns_  
_well they all know our name,_  
_six gun sound_  
_is our claim to fame_

_~bad company_

* * *

The planet was lush and green before him as he broke through its clouded atmosphere, eyes scanning over both the landscape itself and the ship’s navigation in search of an area just big enough to land the Razor Crest without it being open to prying eyes.

Months had passed since he and the child had left a similar looking world. One that had offered the both of them warm acceptance and the option to settle down. Something he had wanted to be able to offer the kid from the moment he met his eyes and saw himself.

Nothing more than a child, torn from where he belonged and orphaned far too young, though somehow not yet tainted by the dark hand life had dealt him. It was a spark of hope to witness. Something to be protected.

And he would.

So he knew that it would be best for the both of them to leave both Sorgan and the idea of a home word behind until the child could know peace, for wherever they stayed too long, trouble dutifully followed.

Mando disembarked from the Razor Crest alone.

When his boots pressed deep into the soil of the fertile land, he stilled for a moment to scan the surroundings and subdue the soft swaying sensation behind his eyes. They had been in the air more often than not as of late and the solid ground felt good beneath his feet.

A silent mist fell from the thick cloud covering above, glazing across his helmet while he walked, and it brought with it a whisper of longing, soft but striking. He could faintly remember growing up in the barren lands of his home world, the brutal length of the hot season crippling their food sources and leaving their throats dry with thirst.

But when it rained – when it rained the whole planet seemed to come alive around him, wildflowers sprouting from places that should have been impossible, his mother weaving them into crowns for the children of the village to wear proudly, while the adults put out their basins and cookware and anything else that could collect water, finding any excuse to linger outside themselves until they were thoroughly soaked through.

It was in times like those when his father would hoist him onto his shoulders, almost dancing beneath him in excitement. And he had felt like a king in those moments, high in the air, his face turned up to feel the rain against his cheeks, holding both small hands out in an attempt to collect and hold on to every drop of moisture he could, for it never seemed to last quite long enough.

He had not felt such a sensation since, and in that moment he did what he could to convince himself it didn’t matter. There were other, more pressing, reasons to stay focused.

Work had been harder to come by after his fiery resignation from the guild, and though its connections spiraled deep into the underworld, his spanned well beyond the outer rim. More from word of mouth and reputation than anything. Those who chose to live in the dark had nothing better to do than talk and it occasionally worked in his favor.

It was how he heard about this job, a coded comm sent through a frequency between frequencies, known only by those who had learned to listen. Most of this type of work, the guild would never sully their talents with, either because they believed the job to be unworthy of them or it touched on a certain side of immorality that not even the most seasoned members cared to dip their fingers in.

All he knew for certain was that his rations were getting low and there were two mouths to feed on the ship now, a new kind of dread weighing heavy on his shoulders at the thought of the little one having to go without for any amount of time. And so, after only a moment of deliberation, he had shifted their course to the one that brought him to the thick underbrush he now maneuvered through.

He kept a careful watch through his sightline, hand resting over the blaster at his hip, not knowing much about the planet that seemed to breathe around him but sensing well enough its dangers.

It was controlled by a warlord named Ghal, that much he had made out from the transmission. Someone had wronged him, stolen from him, and the reward was promised to be plentiful. Still, he knew all too well that where there were warlords, war itself closely followed and he could leave nothing to chance now. Not anymore.

The sun drooped low in the sky, peaking brightly through the parting clouds along the horizon by the time he made it to the foot of the temple. It towered before him, massive stone walls and pillars swallowed in ivy, aged dark by centuries of wear and weather.

He checked each of his weapons before ascending the steps to the entrance, both wrists and guns, then felt for the press of his blade against his leg as he slid it back into place in his boot and let its weight there settle him.

It was much darker inside and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust through the tinted transperisteel of his helmet. When they did, he took in the sheer size of the space, its ceiling rising high enough to be hidden in shadow. A towering throne sat at the end of the room, a large, circular skylight cut into the stone overhead casting light across it like a spotlight. Every inch of the inside walls were carved by figures of all kinds. Some he could make out, a man and woman standing tall over a crowd of smaller beings, their extremities dripping with jewels and wealth.

The opposite wall was claimed nearly entirely by a great beast, teeth bared, and horns rising far from its crown, the span of its wings splaying wide across the stone. 

Something shifted in the shadows at its left.

His hand shot down for his blaster.

“Do be wise with your actions,” a deep voice warned from the shroud. “You are surrounded.”

It was only then that he circled around to find he truly was, the group of forty or so beings scattered around the perimeter, dressed head to toe in black to match the darkness they dwelled in. They had made no sound, no scratch or inkling of motion around him. It left him feeling cold where he stood.

He drew a deep breath and slowly re-holstered his blaster.

“I’m here for a job. Not a fight.”

A humorless chuckle came from near the throne and he turned to find its source.

“Ah, so the tales are true then. I knew that someone would hear our call and come running but I would have never expected a Mandalorian.”

The man he watched emerge from the shadows looked as if he could have been carved from the stone itself, his shoulders broad and strong, face hardened with age, though eyes bright and piercing glared back at him. He dressed in black like his men, but his robes held the air of royalty, draping nearly to his feet and trimmed in gold.

“Desperate times,” the Mandalorian half shrugged, feigning calm, but his hands were tense at his sides, ready to send flames flying if the need arose.

“Desperate times indeed,” the warlord gave nearly through his teeth, turning to sit in the throne. He lifted a hand to wave off his men.

Before he could tilt his helmet to track them, they were gone from sight.

“I have been wronged by someone I believed I could trust,” Ghal continued slowly, focusing on where his palm pressed against the broad arm of the chair. He fidgeted absently with a large ring on his middle finger. “In her betrayal, she has stolen something from me of high importance.” When his eyes rose, they flickered with heat. “I want it back.”

“What was stolen?” He asked, no longer bound by the guild to silence that which pulled his attention.

Instead of answering him, the warlord raised his fingers and a servant woman, dressed in mere scraps walked into view carrying a tray that seemed heavy in her arms, the struggle of its weight wrinkling her brow.

On it were stacks of gold in its purest form. Rows of thick ingots the length of fingers instead of pressed into the coined truguts or peggats more commonly found amongst the scourge of the galaxy.

He’d never seen so much of it in his life.

“I am not paying for questions. Is a quarter upfront enough to keep them to yourself?” The inquiry nearly seemed sincere but there was sneering pride there too.

“That depends. Let’s see the puck.”

“No need,” Ghal shook his head softly. “I have collected a fob, but the code is in her skin. You need but track her down.”

“In her skin… She’s chipped?” He tried to stifle the sudden tinge of disgust from his voice. It would not be his first time tracking a chipped bounty, though they were growing few and far between. If anything, it made his job easier. But the idea of ownership over another being had never sat quite right with him. 

The warlord held up his hand as if to silence him.

His jaw flexed beneath his visor.

“Grey eyes. Dark hair. And she very well may have a scar across her brow depending on how it heals,” the warlord slithered.

Something twisted tight within him. He ignored it.

“And her age?”

“Old enough to be foolish,” the warlord returned sharply, words snapping like a whip. After a moment, he settled back against his chair. “Bring her back to me alive and it will be the last bounty you will ever need to hunt, should you so choose.”

His thoughts turned to the kid then. The commission alone could sustain them for months. 

He dipped his head in agreement, gathering his cut of the gold and the tracking fob before silently returning to his ship, the heavy feeling in his stomach refusing to release its hold on him.

* * *

When she had made it far enough from the mainland to not be recognized and bartered passage off Bakura, her only request had been to get as far away as her credits could earn her.

It was why she did not know the name of the world she now stood on, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

She was free.

And though she didn’t have much more than the clothes that robed her, her shawl pulled high across her mouth and nose, and her knife secured at her hip, she felt something close to peace for the first time in as long as she could remember.

At first she had had to steal to get by, small things, fruit and bread when a busy shopkeeper would turn their head for too long…

Until she had gotten caught.

On her home world, the punishment for thievery was the loss of a hand, ensuring that it could never again take that which it did not own. It was why she had been ready to fight the old woman who’d called to her, heat bristling through her blood and thoughts turning to the steel at her side.

But instead, all she had received was a knowing smile and a job offer.

She accepted it hesitantly, not fully trusting anyone, much less the stranger that studied her as if trying to recall her from a long lost memory. It was unsettling at the beginning, but over the last few weeks the town had grown more familiar and the hairs at the back of her neck did not rise as often when someone made pass too close or gazed for too long.

She had come to learn the woman’s name somewhere during her third week of service. The work was rather uneventful, cleaning floors and stocking tonics in the back of a run-down cantina. It would do until she saved up enough to move on, her mind slowly coming to terms with the idea that she would never truly get to rest her head in the same place for long ever again. But something about the town felt safe. No one looked at her twice or asked too many questions.

It helped her to grow brave enough to ask a few of her own, the woman finally introducing herself as Maz and simply saying that she had already known all she needed to, before asking permission to redress the wound above her eye.

She allowed the tears to flow that night. They had been building up for a long time, tightening her chest and burning her vision when she least expected, making her feel weak.

When sleep would not come, she traded her small room above the cantina for the crisp air of the forest, it more familiar to her than anything softer. She sat against the base of a thick tree, tucking herself close enough so that its shadow in the moons light guarded her own. For a long time, she turned her gaze to the stars above and let them slow her breathing.

* * *

He kept close to the soaring stone monuments as he made his way around them, only the quickening beep of the tracking fob marking his movements.

Running to Takodana meant his target was either new to the criminal world or just senseless. It was believed by most to be a sanctuary that one resorted to to find work or hide from it, but he had earned plenty of coin off both over the years.

When the buildings grew familiar to him, he ducked into the alley way in search of a door very few on the planet knew about. He had earned the knowledge and a fair day's pay by busting a Toydarian based trafficking ring for a client that held a soft spot for children. It was a task he would have done for much less, but she had come through all the same.

“Maz,” he nodded in greeting while she walked right up to him as if expecting he would come. And a part of him knew well enough that she most likely had known, whether it be from her own abilities or the eyes and ears she had everywhere.

She stood just even in height with the plating at his thighs, but her eyes always seemed to hold a challenge when they turned up to him.

“This is never good,” she groaned with a fondness that had him smirking beneath his mask.

“It’s good to see you too. Can we sit?” He gestured to a small table in the far corner.

The room was already secluded, divided from the main area of the cantina by a wall of rock that seemed impenetrable unless you knew where to look. Even still, he preferred his back against something solid.

“I would offer you a drink but…” she trailed off with a small shrug as she walked in front of him to the table.

“You always do.” He followed, taking a seat across from her and meeting her level gaze.

She forced a laugh, “Well one day I hope it will be all you’re here for.”

He sighed and relaxed, letting his elbows rest against the tabletop.

“Not tonight.”

Maz gave him a look that edged on pity.

“Looking for work then?"

“Something like that,” he nodded. “Any new faces in town lately?”

Her eyes thinned.

“What kind of question is that?”

“I’m looking for a woman. Human. She may have a wound on her face.”

An untrained eye would have missed it, but he caught the swiftest wave of recognition as it passed through her eyes.

Maz tilted her head curiously. “And what exactly has this woman done to draw the attention of a Mandalorian?”

For a moment he sat unmoving.

“It’s not what she’s done, it’s what she’s worth,” he finally gave lowly, the words just barely passing his mask.

Something in them made Maz pull the goggles from her eyes, shifting them up so that they rested against her forehead and he swore she could see straight through him when she got like this. He straightened in his seat.

“So what I hear is true.”

A quick breath hissed from him. “What have you heard?”

“Enough to know that the longer you sit here, the more trouble you’ll bring onto you both. Not to mention my city.” She rose to her feet, crossing the few steps to his side of the table and resting her hand over his gloved knuckles. “Take my advice this once – Please. Let this one go, take the child and move on somewhere beyond the outer rim. It’s not safe here for either of you.”

She gave his hand a gentle squeeze before releasing him and turned to walk away.

The right words wouldn’t come so he only let his head fall.

“Thank you,” he managed.

And it was sincere. She had told him all he needed to know.

He was on the right trail.

* * *

A loud snap came from just behind her.

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, the calming breeze of the forest cooling her skin and lulling her thoughts, but just as quickly, she was jolted awake, heart rising in her throat, eyes blinking rapidly through the darkness in a desperate attempt to focus.

Her shoulder pressed hard against oak as she shifted silently, leaning over just enough to peek around the tree.

A few feet away, a sand mouse scuttled across the drying leaves foraging for worms. Her exhale of relief spooked the little thing and it sprinted away as her shoulders relaxed and she turned her back to the tree once more.

That’s when she saw him.

A figure in armor stood before her, the forest going silent around them, and she couldn’t be sure if it was due to his presence or the growing static of her heartbeat in her ears. The only thing she could make out over it was a soft beeping sound coming from him. It was a familiar thing that ground steel into her blood.

The moonlight glinted off his helmet and though she could see nothing past it, she could feel his eyes on her, heavy and searching.

He stood unmoving, hand hovering close to the weapon at his side.

“Stand up,” he ordered, the sound almost mechanical as it passed through his helmet.

For a moment, she could only stare blankly up at him, riding a wave of panic as it burned through her chest, for she had heard stories of hunters like this. Tales her people had passed down for generations, though mostly to scare children from misbehaving and slaves from their freedom.

She was neither.

“I’m fine here, thanks,” she finally gave low, still shakier than she’d hoped.

His helmet tilted.

“You can stand up on your own or I can make you.”

“Why?” She bit back.

He took a step toward her then and she flinched back hard against the tree.

It stilled him.

“Why?” She asked again, the word cutting through her teeth as she did what she could to keep her breath and blink searing heat from her eyes.

“Because I have to.”

It came almost sullen from him, but it changed nothing. He was on a mission then. And if the tales held true, a Mandalorian never failed to retrieve their bounty in one way or another.

The thought draped a strange calm over her, acceptance cooling the fire in her chest to a warming glow, soft and resolute.

“You’ll have to kill me then,” she breathed, her arms relaxing against the ground along her thighs. “I’m not going back alive.”

He shifted, snapping her attention down in time to watch his right hand hang more loosely against his side.

“What have you stolen from Emperor Ghal?”

She bristled at the name, a snort slipping from her on its own accord.

“Stolen? Is that what he told you?”

The Mandalorian stood silent.

His question dug further beneath her skin.

“You’re a fool if you believed that. The demon reigns over an entire planet… Controls vast armies of highly trained soldiers prepared at every moment to do his bidding. Why is it you think he would hire an outsider for something as slight as theft?” Her eyes thinned on him and she watched as her words tightened his stance.

“Stand up,” he repeated low, in a way that tensed her muscles and shook her core.

When she didn’t move, he did, taking the step that would put him at her feet.

As his left foot came down, she put every bit of force she had into kicking it out from under him in a sudden burst of movement, using the momentum to push herself up from the ground and run. It was instinct more than anything. She was not afraid of a fair fight but this was far from it. Speed would be her only option with his armor to weigh him down.

The underbrush had just started to thin, dim lights from the city peeking through the trees ahead like twinkling beacons, when a cord wrapped tight around her ankle. The next moment, there was dirt against her face, the ground smashing hard against her where she fell. She clawed at whatever she could to force herself forward, hands dragging across rock and thorns, grains of sand pushing painfully deep beneath her fingernails.

In a quick jolt, she was being pulled backwards, her body dragging against the ground where she could not gather herself quick enough to hold her own weight. She felt the bandage rip from her brow, hissing in pain as fresh, hot blood blinded her right eye. 

The pressure from the cord disappeared and she was being hauled up by the arm, unforgiving hands wrapping around each of her wrists before she had time to swing, and though she pulled and struggled, it was no use. A second later and her arms were expertly maneuvered behind her back, tight shackles taking the place of his hold on her wrists and as they clicked closed, the world around her faded and went white.


	2. Cautionary Tales

Dawn was breaking when metal abruptly replaced dirt beneath her feet and she was just aware enough to feel herself being half dragged, half guided up a steep ramp. Her head pulsed with the movement. Her vision was a blur of grey, one eye closed against the blood that oozed lazily across its lid and down her cheek. The other stung of sand and sweat.

She felt her arms shift behind her, the bounty hunter releasing one of her wrists from its cuff just long enough to wrap the bindings over the rung of a metal ladder, the steel beam pressing hard against her spine, before he snapped them closed again.

Her legs felt as if they would give out beneath her, ankle throbbing where the grappling rope had snared, and he had _pulled_ – but with the way she was cuffed, her body would not reach the ground if she gave in to the sensation, leaving her weight to hang by her hands.

She can guess why when she blinked her good eye clear enough to see him walk away with a slight limp, the sight of his tattered cape spotted with fresh soil and a few stuck leaves causing something dark in her to glean with pride.

So there was something alive and palpable under there after all, whereas the stories would have one believe that Mandalorians were infallible beings, bred for war and its bidding.

But she was no stranger to war herself, and he had been the first she’d come across in all her years.

From a young age, she had been forced to pass through many realms, always silent at the Emperor’s side, a bound witness to the horrors he seemed to scar into whatever war torn world a promising acquisition of resources or trade deal was to be had.

She had seen enough innocent bloodshed to last a lifetime and was not suited for such a thing. It was a trait Ghal would call weakness. Something it seemed he could smell on people, all a wolf pawing at its prey before the inevitable, and he had always made a show of joy in snuffing it out. 

It had to have been why the bounty hunter was hired.

She watched him closely as he moved to pass by her in the tight hall of the ship, pressing herself back against the cold steel and going still when he neared.

She could feel his eyes on her as he walked by, disappearing from view behind her.

For a moment she held her breath. Listened. Waited.

She braced herself, a chill running through her, when she heard his heavy footsteps coming up behind her again, but he simply tucked his shoulder so as not to touch her and made pass.

This time, he stopped in front of a control panel next to a tall door adjacent to the entrance of the ship, quickly typing in a code that sent it lifting open with a low hiss.

His body blocked her view as he leaned forward into the small room to grab something.

He stood, pushing another button to close the door before turning and raising his free arm to throw the switch that started the boarding ramp to slowly rise.

She only had a second to take note of the brown bundle in the crook of his arm. The fabric seemed to move in his hold, but she didn’t have time to wonder what was beneath it before he was walking right up to her.

The wall against her back was steadying, her wrists bending at an uncomfortable angle behind her as she inclined her head and glared at him with the only eye that could.

He stilled for a moment, looking her over.

His helmet tilted forward toward her right eye. She fought the urge to wince.

“What caused that?” He asked, voice tight.

She couldn’t stop the lift of her brow. A part of her knew his interest had most likely been peaked by the gauze over the wound before she had tried to run. It had merely been reopened when she fell, but at that moment it stung like poison and filled her with ire.

“Being dragged like an animal, if I had to guess.”

An impatient sound came from him before he dismissed her with a soft shake of his helmet.

He moved beside her to climb up the latter. The cold rung shuddered between her wrists with each of his steps. Her eyes followed him as he rose until he was out of view.

She was left alone to watch as the boarding ramp gave a final whine, latching closed, the light from the morning suns disappearing behind it.

The ship shook to life beneath her feet and she trembled with it for a long time.

* * *

He knew well enough that Maz’s warning had been a fair one.

He had captured his target and now it was time to leave. To shift the Crest into lightspeed and get his bounty turned in and off his hands as soon as possible.

It was protocol.

Something he had done a hundred times over.

So why did something feel off?

A sigh escaped him when they were finally among the stars, the darkness through the windscreen a calming balm that allowed some of the tension of the last few weeks to roll from his shoulders.

His bounty was slight, but he had underestimated her, his left leg twinging at that exact moment as he flexed his foot. He grimaced beneath his helmet.

And still he was being lenient. He wasn’t sure when it had started, but now he couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had last used the carbonite freezer and the warm bounties were starting to far outweigh the cold ones.

The child chirped behind him in his seat basket and he turned in his chair, boot sliding against the floor.

Stars shined in the kid’s big eyes as he took in the same sight he’d seen for months now, but there was still a sense of wonder rounding them. It did something to his chest, like every time before, waking another part of him that he hadn’t known was there.

When the child noticed his attention, he reached both hands out to him.

“Not right now, I’ve got to get us out of here.”

The kid’s ears dipped with the rejection, a soft pout pulling at his mouth.

The Mandalorian sighed, leaning forward to gently lift him and set him onto his lap before turning back to face the control panel.

The implicit trust shown to him by the little one was still new and powerful, sneaking through the flaws in his armor and finding the man underneath. Something he was sure he didn’t fully deserve but over time, he’d allowed it to ground and direct him, his life and his work now revolving around two instead of just one.

But something about this particular job nagged him still. He was never one to complain about being over paid, but her words had struck a chord that was already humming in him from the moment he’d accepted the bounty. Sure, theft was a crime, but hardly worth the perpetrators weight in gold. And he was no fool, though she had looked at him as if she truly believed him to be.

When both her eyes had been in working order.

The thought turned his stomach and tasted of ash.

He had killed men in cold blood. Knocked unruly targets unconscious just so he wouldn’t have to hear them moan for the entirety of the return trip. Froze beings of all kinds in carbonite for much less.

But something about knowing blood still ran down the woman’s face below wouldn’t sit right.

He shifted the kid to his left leg, freeing his right hand to switch the ship over to auto pilot and unscrewed the child’s metal ball from the thruster lever.

“Here,” he said, releasing it into his small hand and standing to set him down in his basket. “Don’t move.” 

The child squealed with joy.

* * *

By the time the ladder shifted between her arms again, her head was drooping, eyes fixed on a spot on the floor of the ship between her shoes. Her heart rate rose instinctually, but she willed her attention to ignore him.

She could sense him behind her as he descended, metal clanking together softly as he took the final step to the floor and walked past her, around the corner to the back of the ship and out of sight.

Water ran for a few moments. She could hear him shifting things around.

When he returned, she watched in the dim light as his boots strode evenly up to her and stilled.

She swallowed sand and set her teeth before raising her head, noticing he carried a basin of water and a few small towels, before finding the sightline of his helmet.

A short huff of breath escaped him and she was left to imagine what he saw.

In the scuffle, her shawl was gathered in torn ripples about her neck. She could feel thick blood coating her right cheek and jawline, pooling in the hollow of her throat and turning the grey material there black where it soaked through.

Her good eye watched him cautiously as he set the bowl down upon the wall ledge, not fully comprehending what was happening.

“What are you doing?”

He submerged one of the towels in the bowl and rung it out over it.

“You’re bleeding.”

The words were spoken as if nothing more than an observation, but they puzzled her further.

“For hours now…” She straightened when he took another step to stand right in front of her, the damp towel hanging limply in his gloved hand at his side. His helmet twitched.

“You’re wanted alive. It has to stop.”

Her heel slid against the ground where there was not enough room to take a full step back, the ladder pole pressing deep between her shoulder blades.

“I’ll manage.”

“How?” He asked flatly, nodding forward. “You imagine those cuffs are coming off?”

When she didn’t answer, his hand rose to hold the towel up between them.

Her head drew back, the base of her skull pressing against the wall. Long lashes fluttered over fearful eyes.

He stopped.

She could see his attention tick to the one that struggled to open, its lid slightly swollen and marred by streaks of dirt.

For a while, he was silent.

“I almost lost an eye once,” he began wearily, letting his arm fall. “Took a shot from a scout sniper to the temple,” he gestured up to his mask. “Splintered my sight. Hurt like hell.”

She stared back at him, the unexpected story stirring up the ones she had heard many times over, years ago in the great halls where she was taught.

“That’s funny," she tried, the weight of the memory heavy on her lips. "We were warned as children that Mandalorians were tribes of faceless beasts, bound by their oaths to hunt down those who deserved such a fate. They were meant to be cautionary tales but in the wrong mouth, caution becomes control. Real.” Her voice grew accusing. “When I would question a lesson, my teachers liked to warn me that a monster would come for my tongue.” She tried to swallow and found she couldn’t. “But my father… My father always said they would come for my eyes, for as much scorn as they held.” She blinked away wet heat.

The Mandalorian said nothing.

Her head drew away from the wall.

“Is it true then?”

His helmet tilted.

“Some of it. We do what we have to to survive.”

The careless confirmation warmed the air, sparked a flame in her chest.

“It must not be working.”

He took a sudden step toward her then and she went very still, her eyes level with his chestplate as it rose and fell.

“You speak of things you can’t understand.” His rasping voice was controlled, but only just.

She counted her heartbeats until his stance gradually relaxed and she felt the rough side of a gloved finger press under her chin, tilting it up. Her eyes slid closed and her jaw locked tight, hating the sensation of the touch as it burned her skin.

The gentleness behind it was a foreign thing as the cool rag dragged lightly across her forehead, her cheek, her neck. She briefly wondered where he’d learned such an unnecessary skill for his kind.

He stopped every few minutes to rinse the rag out, re-wring it, and continue the pattern. Still, she winced every time it made contact, more from the shock than the sting.

His voice cut through the darkness.

“To heal this correctly, I need to know what caused it.”

All traces of ire were gone from his words and something about them mixed with the blackness behind her closed eyes and the cool sensation against them steeled her resolve.

“A ring,” she whispered.

She could feel the shift in his posture, a new rigidity taking his frame, the towel stilling against her jawline for a heartbeat. It passed just as quickly, and he was moving again.

He released her and she heard something shift at his belt. An eye flew open to see him thumbing the activator for a cauterizing pen. It was a common practice in the healing clinics of her home world, but the familiarity failed to make the idea of it any less unpleasant.

“Be still,” he warned, taking her chin fully in his hand to tilt her head up and hold her steady, thumb and fingertips pressing against either side of her jaw.

She closed her eyes again, gripping the pole of the ladder at her back tight between her fingers.

The sparks crackled and licked at her skin. She could smell it burning.

“Have you ever heard of how Emperor Ghal came to his power?” She asked him then, a forced distraction through her teeth, letting the pain overtake the anxiety that bloomed in her blood at the name.

“No, but with warlords it's easy enough to guess.”

“You’d be right,” her lips pulled back into a tight snarl. “I was only nine years old when he took me along for the first time. It was a small village on a Yavin moon. The people there were hearty and hard workers and he promised them fine lives and great wealth to leave their home and work for him.” She paused a moment to catch her breath and he released her again for a moment. The cool sensation returned to press over where her skin seethed, and she slouched against it.

“I watched those who accepted say goodbye to friends and loved ones before they were loaded onto ships.” She blinked both eyes open, unhindered. Her bottom lip twitched. “And then I watched my father give the order to slaughter those who declined in the street like they were nothing.”

The cloth fell slowly from her face.

“The Emperor is your father?”

Bile burned in her throat. She swallowed.

“Yes.”

“And this?” He gestured at the seared cut across her brow.

Her eyes fell.

“Yes,” she breathed, a tired ache settling deep in her bones. “I fought back. He never liked that very much.” She braced herself and looked back up at him. “All I’ve stolen from him is my own freedom and quite frankly, I would rather you throw me out the airlock right now than take it from me.”

He didn’t move for a long time.

“And you believe Mandalorians to be the monsters?”

The question hung heavy in the air.

Something stirred above her before she could answer. She turned and looked up, directly into a pair of large, dark eyes.

She recoiled. A yelp cracked from her lips.

“Hey,” the Mandalorian tossed the soiled rag into the bowl of tinted water, raising both arms to pull the tiny thing down from where it was perched on a high rung of the ladder. “What have I told you about sneaking up on people?”

“What _is_ that?” She asked, taking in the sight of the creature.

Its ears were long and pointed, a soft white fuzz spanning over them and its crinkled forehead. At first she had thought its eyes were big black orbs in its head, but in the dim light at the closer distance in the Mandalorian’s hold, she could make out the deep brown of its irises.

It cooed and reached a hand up toward his mask. In it was a silver ball.

“He’s a child,” he answered, looking down at it.

“Yours?”

He didn't answer.

A stunned laugh bit from her at the silence.

“Is that what you’re hiding under there?”

It earned her an exasperated sound as he tucked the child in the crook of his left arm, reaching for the ladder with his right.

The quick motion shook her. 

“Wait,” she called, turning her head to find him over her shoulder.

He stopped.

“Can I sit?” The question was quiet, timid. “I am tired.”

And she was, her ankle still aching from their hike to the ship and a deep throb radiating through her skull. Sleep had been something hard for her to grasp over the last few weeks and the weight of it pressed uneasily against her eyes. More than that though, she wasn't sure how much longer she could hold herself upright. 

He hesitated, helmet tilting toward the floor.

Instead of answering, he set the child down on the opposite side of him. She felt his hand grip the center of the cuffs behind her, the other wrapping firm around her wrist before he released one side open.

“Go ahead.”

The words were as tight as his hold, surely expecting a struggle she was too tired to give.

She eased herself down, groaning a bit when she put too much pressure on the wrong foot, the motion awkward without the use of her hands for balance. As soon as she met the ground, she sagged with relief.

He clicked the cuff closed around a lower rung, her hands resting more comfortably against the small of her back

“Thank you,” she murmured.

He stood motionless for a long time behind her before he picked up the child and climbed.


	3. Hoth

He understood tired.

Intimately.

More so now than ever before.

In planetary time, it would be what most would call _getting late_ if he had actually been able to keep them on any sort of schedule. It was a hard thing to do when surrounded by darkness and not much else. But he knew it was time for the kid to eat and rest when his own eyes started growing heavy, hands gripping looser around the navigation controls without warrant.

It was something he found happening more and more often as of late, a near constant weariness overtaking him in a way that rest, as hard to come by as it already was, wouldn’t seem to shake anymore.

The target upon the little one’s head and the consequences of his attempts to erase it were his alone to bear. And he would carry them willingly. But he would not – _could_ not buckle under their weight.

The being alone part, he was used to. Had reveled in it and the peace it brought. It was still something he had to recollect every now and again, a salient thing when it caught in his mind. That he wasn’t only responsible for himself anymore. That one lapse in vigilance could mean death. And not just his.

His thoughts flickered back to the third party now aboard the ship, not for the first time since he’d left her where she sat.

By proxy, her life was now in his hands too.

The thought was troubling.

If he had just left her alone down there, as he would have any bounty before…

Now he knew too much, listened to her every word too intently. They still clashed in his mind, guilt prickling at him in a way that he had once liked to believe he was immune to. There was no place for it in his work.

But he had never been so troubled by the fear one held for him.

The reaction was common from those that had been marked for capture. Especially when they had heard the stories and saw his armor, instantly aware of his intentions, as he had always held a knack for making them clear. It helped more often than not, the dread they induced as a whole making his targets surrender without a fight or grow sloppy in their attempts.

Either way, he had learned to read fear well enough.

And hers had been raw and barely contained, even after, as he’d done what he could to close her wound.

But with her admission of what had wrought it, it dawned on him, slow and piercing like a blade pressed to skin, that a portion of what kept her trembling had been forced upon her long before they had crossed paths, in legend or person. An ingrained response one developed when young and mistreated by those who held power over them. He had seen it in the eyes of a few of the young foundlings that were brought in, trust stolen and spared from lives that made the dark protection of the underground covert seem like a saving grace. 

She feared him not just because he was a Mandalorian, but because he was a man.

The thought changed the tempo of his heart, an incensed hate blending with his own memories as they began to race. Loss of control was a quick and encompassing thing, much like being held under a raging sea by an invisible force. Of watching his life be ripped from him without the ability or skills to stop it happening. The snarling sound of his home burning to the ground. His mother’s final panicked words of love and father’s tear-brimmed eyes.

He had been too young to do anything to help. Too fragile.

He could feel the explosions shudder the air around him as if they still raged. His hands tightened around the controls to keep from shaking.

The child babbled behind him.

He turned fast in his seat, breaths coming in short bursts beneath his helmet, and for a while, he made himself focus on the kid, his small claws fidgeting with one of the straps that held his booster in place, until his heart steadily slowed to a normal rhythm and the flames that edged it began to subside.

The kid eventually tired of the strap and picked up his metal ball from where he’d sat it beside him, pressing it to his mouth and confirming his earlier suspicions.

A welcomed distraction. 

“Hungry?”

His voice perked the child’s ears up and gleaming eyes turned to him. He’d come to know that look as _yes_ and suspected the kid knew it too, as often as he used it on him.

He turned back to flip a few switches on the control panel before picking him up from his basket, letting his small frame settle against his arm.

He stopped when he reached the hatch where the top of the ladder rested. The rations were stored in a small pantry at the back of the ship and although he knew that she had already learned of the kid's existence the hard way, something newfound and feral in him didn’t like the idea of _anybody_ he didn’t trust being too close to the little one, much less a bounty. 

He glanced down the chute to find that it wouldn’t be an issue, so long as they were quiet.

With a silence usually reserved for hunting, he descended the ladder, the soles of his boots meeting each rung, where he would have habitually skipped a few or leapt down from a reasonable height.

He passed her still form, turning the back corner of the ship to enter the small space that served as storage. A few crates were stacked in the corner filled with blankets, tarps, and cleaning cloths. Spare metal, wound rope, and extra wiring hung along the back wall. The pantry area took up nearly the entirety of the left wall, arranged neatly with a variety of foods that would not spoil, ration packets, dried meats, and broths.

The kid favored rhonto jerky. He had bought the small shop out of it on their last supply run.

He set him down on top of one of the crates, turning to take down a small wooden bowl and tearing a thick strip of the jerky into bit sized pieces.

When he turned back a minute later to offer it to the child, he was gone.

A quick wave of panic seized his muscles before he was moving.

It took only seconds to find him.

The kid had just rounded the corner, a tiny hand holding the edge of the wall as he stilled. His head tilted softly, taking in the sight of the stranger that sat a few feet away.

Only after acknowledging their safe distance, he found he did the same.

She looked small, her knees pulled up and bent sideways so that one ankle rested over the other. In the position, he could see where the skin there, just above the lip of her boot, was an angry red. His jaw set and eyes flicked up then to trace the curve of her neck where her head rested back against the wall. The wound across her brow was still raised, a black brand against her skin, but it had closed correctly.

A silent breath left him.

He hadn’t meant to look past it. It was easier when all bounties looked the same to him, a detached sort of mantra he had preached to himself over time. Sometimes even believed.

They were profit. Nothing more.

But this one was young, dark hair scattering loose around her shoulders from where it had fallen from its tie. Her eyes shifted every few seconds beneath their lids, a weary sort of worldliness settling dark in the hollows beneath her lashes, and though he had sensed no indication that she had lied to him when they’d spoke, something about the sight solidified at least a part of her story.

She had been through hell.

“Hey,” he called softly, coaxing the child’s attention up to him. “Let her sleep.” He waved his hand toward himself, holding out the bowl of jerky.

When the kid noticed it, he toddled back to him, a fresh elation widening his eyes.

* * *

She always dreamed in flashes.

Some she would forget by the time she woke up. Others stayed at the front of her mind and troubled her for hours, days, weeks after waking.

This one was familiar.

She was in her garden, a place a peace amongst all the rules and chaos. Wild namana trees grew large within the thick grass, their blossoming flowers winding up the stone walls, reaching for the sun. Raw crystals glistened in the natural light, spread across the soil like scattered stars and she had always loved spending afternoons in the shade, harvesting the fairest fragments for her collection.

A flash of blinding red.

The garden morphed and distorted beneath her feet. Stone walls closed in on her like a vice.

The air grew rank and murky, thick with smoke and the copper scent of blood.

There was a small village before her. She couldn’t be sure of its name. It changed each time.

Every structure was engulfed in flames, raging and hissing toward the night sky. Screams filled the air, some young, some grown, and the sorrow they carried echoed in her ears and tore at her chest, causing one of her own to build up in her lungs, clawing to be released…

The ground jolted beneath her.

She was thrown awake.

The ship shook violently. An unmistakable whistling sound of blaster canon fire seared past too close, just beyond the walls.

Her heart was a wild thing in her chest.

She pulled her knees beneath her and tried to get to her feet before remembering how she was cuffed.

The Mandalorian rounded the corner carrying the child, nearly running. It froze her in a crouch.

“Hold on to something.”

He passed her, cape fluttering out behind him.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re under attack,” his voice echoed down to her as he stepped from the top of the ladder and disappeared.

She braced herself, clutching the steel behind her with all her strength.

* * *

A silent curse passed his lips as he tucked the child into his booster basket, giving the edge of it a slight tug to make sure it was still secure against the chair before returning to the pilot seat and taking command of the ship.

Cannon fire struck the rear hard at that same moment, jerking him forward against the controls.

He rolled them, adrenaline coursing through his veins as he did what he could to make the maneuver smooth enough to keep them in their seats. He was a good pilot and he knew it. Depended on it. _Loved_ it.

The child gripped the lip of his basket with both hands and let out a happy squeal.

Something about the kid enjoying this clashed against his heart thrumming madly against his sternum and nearly made him snort. 

“Hang on,” he called loud over his shoulder.

He reversed the thrusters then, throwing the ship to a near halt in a heartbeat.

Seconds passed as he waited for the enemy craft to blast by them.

It never came.

Shots rang out from beneath them instead and he could see sparks fly from the left engine turbine as it was struck and exploded into a pillar of black smoke.

It stopped his heart and stole his mirth.

He gripped the controls hard in his hands, shifting the craft back into motion. It sputtered and jolted in his hold.

In reaction, he shoved both controls forward, sending the nose of the ship into a fumbling dive. 

There he was. It was an enemy he recognized. The ship belonged to another member of the guild, no doubt in hunt of the sizable bounty they would bring him.

It would be his last.

Red flashed bright before him as he lined up the target in the ship’s crosshairs. It barreled toward them at a sickening speed.

He fired four shots. Overkill for the small size of the enemy craft, but it just felt right, and at their proximity, he would have no choice but to go through the explosion rather than around it. The smaller the pieces, the better. 

A blast of orange blinded him. The shock wave rolled heavy over the ship, knocking him back deep into his seat. He could feel it in the ache of the taut muscle of his arms and the quick flex of his neck.

He checked the child, his body now laid back against the blankets, but he was unscathed.

Warning lights flashed across the panel. Sirens blared.

He shifted the controls and nothing happened. The ship free floated in the air.

He tried to flip the navigation back on. The screen stayed a haunting black. 

He stood abruptly, gripping the back of his chair for support as he flipped on the backup override.

Only the right engine light lit up. He sat, easing the thruster forward and it choked to life.

One engine. He could work with that.

For a while, he carefully maneuvered the ship through space with no way of knowing in which direction they traveled. The milky curve of an unknown planet marred the deep black sky in the distance.

It would have to do. If the right engine failed in the air, they were as good as dead.

The landing was nearly as harsh as the world itself, the deafening sound of ripping metal filling the air as the ship tore across the mountainous terrain until finally coming to a lashing stop.

The silence was unsettling. He fought to catch his breath.

Through the windscreen was a sea of white, thick clusters of silvery clouds covering the sun, and snow coating as far as the eye could see, swelling in thick blankets over the distant mountain slopes. Dark columns of natural rock jutted up hundreds of feet high from the landscape in scattered places, their tops dusted grey, casting eerie shadows across the ground.

A strong, howling wind blew against the ship, rocking it slightly every so often when it caught wrong. Flurries of snow tangled wildly in the air.

For a while, he sat and watched them fall, not quite sure what else to do.

* * *

She was still trying to convince herself it was over when she found she wasn’t alone again.

The ship was motionless, but her head still swayed, leaving sickness to turn in her stomach. She attempted to breathe in the way her mother had taught her once, on a night long ago when the world had begun to grow too heavy on her shoulders and she had felt control of her own mind and body slipping.

In the nose, out the mouth. Deep, full breaths.

It was in the midst of the exercise that the Mandalorian descended from above.

He paused a moment next to her, looking her over, before turning to flip the switch that sent out the boarding ramp.

The second it slid open, a cold unknown to her cut through the small space in angry gusts, tossing her hair and stinging every inch of her bare skin. She thinned her eyes against it and tucked her head down, where she could not use her hands to defend her face.

Beyond the door was nothing but blinding white.

He started out it.

“Hey, where are you going?” She called to him, the quick clench of shock lilting her voice.

He paused and turned to face her, his cape tossing violently behind him in the wind.

“To check the engine. It was hit.”

She had figured something like that had happened, felt the explosion as it’d rocked through the ship and her every nerve, the ground grinding just inches beneath her feet as they had crashed down.

But now that it was confirmed, a new dread sank deep to her core. They were stuck here.

The cold seeped through her clothes and nipped at her skin. She shivered.

Only then did he speak again.

“I won’t be long.”

* * *

The left engine just – wasn’t there anymore, the turbine shell hollowed where the engine itself had been disintegrated inside. He pulled open its wiring panel along the siding of the ship, the stinging cold of the metal penetrating straight through his gloves and burning his fingertips.

The wires were intact at least. He would just need to find new parts. On a barren ice planet.

The chill that crept over him was from more than just the cold.

He forced the latch closed a bit harder than necessary, ducking his helmet and fighting the winds to make it back to the boarding ramp. As soon as he reached the top, he sealed it closed.

He had been outside for only minutes, but already frost webbed along his armor, beading into moisture as it melted.

“Well?” She asked softly.

It drew his eyes down to her. A soft shade of pink had bloomed along her cheeks and nose from the wind’s bite, even in the protection of the ship.

He leaned his back against the door. He had no answer to give. The words just wouldn’t seem to process in his mind.

Even inside, with no power the ship wouldn’t maintain a livable temperature for very long. Not with such a forceful storm raging against it.

The thought sent him into action. He climbed above just long enough to grab the child.

The small thing was already shivering. Practiced hands bundled him tighter before cradling him in his hold.

He half climbed, half jump down the ladder again to go to the back of the ship, fetching the few extra linens he had stored away and wrapping a third layer around him. The child’s eyes questioned as he did so.

“It’s alright,” he promised, pulling him close and growing still when his eyes landed on the two spare blankets resting in one of the crates.

He shouldn’t care that she shivered with the cold, and it took him a moment to convince himself that he didn’t. He just had to keep her alive.

It was enough to move him around the corner, the child curled in one arm and the linens hanging from his hand.

She had pulled her legs up as close to her as she could, her body shuddering every few seconds. When she noticed him, her chin tilted up, eyes searching.

“Is he okay?”

“Yes,” he answered, stopping a few steps away. “Just cold.”

She nodded once and glanced down at his other hand. 

“Where are we?”

A sigh came from him, sounding hollow.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, watching as it tightened her lips and creased her brow. “But this storm isn’t letting up any time soon.”

He set the spare blankets along the wall ledge before pressing the code to open the door of his small cot room. The child blinked tired eyes at him as he laid him down to rest.

He turned back to face her.

She watched him, eyes following as he crossed back toward the wall. They flicked to the linens and grew guarded.

“Can I have my hands?” She asked, a careful sound that just barely carried over the howling of the wind. “They’re going numb.”

He considered her for a moment, recalling the pang of the cold against his own fingers. Something deep and reflexive chastised him in the back of his mind. He bit down at it.

“I won’t hurt him…” she started again, looking past him into the small room. “If that’s what you’re worrying about. And there’s nowhere I can go,” her head shook slightly as she seemed to take on the full weight of her own confession.

It left him torn in a way he’d never felt before.

She shivered again, a violent thing that rattled the ladder at her back.

He could see vapor in the air now when she breathed.

“Your blade?” He nodded down at where the material of her robe rested over her hip, watching a soft surprise raise her brow.

She stayed quiet for a moment.

“I didn’t steal it if that’s what you’re asking,” her eyes narrowed. “How do you know I have one?” 

He gestured toward his helmet.

“The temperature difference, it’s colder there,” he nodded forward again, watching as she closed in on herself, shoulders inching forward toward her knees. “I hold onto it and you get your hands. Deal?”

She stilled, gauging the offer as if he had spoken it in a different language. Worry set her features before her eyes fell and she nodded.

He moved to kneel beside her, grabbing the hem of her robe between his fingers and letting it fall aside. At his distance, he could hear that she didn’t breathe. He made quick work of it then, noticing that the knife rested in a tan holster strapped around the pants at her upper thigh. He didn’t mean to take in the swell of them, how it curved gracefully into her hip.

He swallowed, focusing on the hilt of the blade instead as he pulled it from its sheath. It was a work of art, gold etched over smoothed red crystal, meticulously carved to curve naturally with one’s hand.

An appreciative hum left him on its own accord as he settled back on his haunches, turning the weapon over in his hold.

“Where did you get this?”

She drew a deep breath at the question.

“Bakura. My home.”

The longing in her voice struck him harder than it should have, a force even his armor couldn’t thwart. He knew well what it was like to yearn for something that held only remnants of destruction and painful memories.

“Most of Ghal’s wealth comes from the mines,” she continued, drawing his attention. “Bakura is rich in metals and crystal like those,” she nodded toward it. “They are extracted and exported to Imperial factions for weapons and favor... He believes they’ll rise again.”

“They won’t,” he returned fast, mind suddenly plagued by images of the child lying still upon an experimentation table.

For a mind numbing second, he had thought he’d been too late, the doctor’s panicked pleads of mercy swallowed by the rage pounding in his ears and the weight of his sin on his chest, until he could focus enough through the haze to make out the steady rise and fall of kid’s. It had been what saved the man’s life.

"Not without help," she agreed, just as sharp. "And it's monsters like him that aide them." 

A new fire scorched in her eyes and for a moment, he let himself burn. He found he favored it much more than fear. 

He slid her blade into the front of his boot, shifting to unlatch the cuffs from her wrists. 

“Here,” he said, standing to grab the blankets down from the ledge and laying them across her legs. “Wrap up and be still.”


	4. The Fire

The wind gnashed its teeth every so often just beyond the walls of the ship, an angry sound that had her clutching the scratchy material of the blankets closed around her.

Still, she was freezing, the cold sinking deep into her bones and stinging her nose and throat when she breathed. It fogged the air before her in curling clouds of steam. She watched as it rose and disappeared.

There was no way to tell how much time passed – minutes, hours, as she did what she could to heed his warning and not move too much, but her muscles ached with cold and her head buzzed with questions.

Who had shot them from the sky? Had Ghal sent them too? Did she fear the wrong fate, to instead freeze to death on a lifeless planet?

She tried to keep her mind busy, studying the walls of the ship. The soft emergency light from the panels above exposed places where it had been damaged and remade before, the soldered lines not quite lining up in some places and the metals aged differently.

But since the Mandalorian had taken the cuffs from her wrists, she found it was hard to keep her eyes from him.

It perplexed her. She hadn’t expected him to oblige.

He stood vigil at the open door of the cot room, leaning against the raised edge. His armor glinted whenever he stirred, even in the near darkness.

Every once in a while, the child would sigh or shift in its sleep behind him and his head would turn as if he had been called by name.

She wondered why. It made no sense that there was a child aboard the bounty hunter’s ship in the first place, unless it was another target. But he didn’t treat it like one. Held it like it could break instead of something to be broken. Guarded it as if it truly was his own.

She tried to force the thought away. It burned too close and threatened to open the hollow in her caused by the absence of such a thing.

He had not taken a blanket for himself, but from what she could tell, he was unaffected by the dropping temperature. Though that was not saying much. He was impossible to read beneath his armor.

A part of her found a comfort in that, not being able to see past it to his eyes when they were on her or the expressions he wore upon his face. She didn’t care what her captor looked like, but at that moment she wished she could know what he was thinking. If he had any sort of a plan…

She turned away from him then, releasing the covers to run her fingers over her wrists beneath them where they still ached from the constraints. The skin there was warm against her icy fingertips and it sent a shiver through her frame. Never had she longed for the light of the sun, _any_ sun, more in her life.

The motion called his attention. She could feel it more than see it. It was so quiet, she could hear the soft drag of metal when he moved. 

She ignored him, adjusting her legs to stop them from falling asleep, and wrapping the blankets tightly around herself again. They were thin and smelt of storage, but they helped.

That had puzzled her too.

“Why did you go to Takodana?”

The question cut through the silence, his helmet sharpening the words.

They were heavy in her ears.

She squared her shoulders and met his mask.

“I didn’t care where I was going at the time,” a brow rose. “Why did you?”

His head tilted. She imagined a smug look painted his face.

“Your bounty. It’s excessive. And I’m still trying to figure out why.”

Well she would be right then.

“I’ve told you, he finds pleasure in this. The game. That’s all this is to him. All _I_ am to him. He could have easily sent one of his men to fetch me home but where’s the fun in that? What brings more fear, the familiar or the unknown?” The air seemed too thin around her and stung in her chest. She tried to fill her lungs with it. “He didn’t just want me tracked down, he wanted me punished.”

The Mandalorian stayed silent for a moment, unmoving. She watched the dim, green light of one of the control panels blink a steady reflection across his shoulder.

“Are you scared now?” he asked, the words measured as they left him.

They crept slow through her chest.

She swallowed and fought keep her expression clear. She failed.

“No,” she breathed, focusing on the blankets that engulfed her instead and fighting off a shiver of cold. And it was partially true. He had had every opportunity to prove the legends but hadn’t yet. “If you wanted me dead, I’d be dead.”

“Then be honest with me,” he returned quick. “If you’ve stolen nothing from your father and just ran away like you claim, why is the price on your head so steep?”

He held a way with words that had her briefly pushing back against the heat that rose in her nerves.

The question was valid though. She was sure her father had made a show of his wealth when the bounty hunter arrived, just as he always did when the chance to impress arose. But this one had yet to prove his worth. At least to the standards Ghal would hold him to.

And for that, she was grateful.

“He has no intention of paying you. He never does.”

He straightened.

“An ambush? This isn’t your first attempt then.”

A sickened sound coughed from her.

“It’s as far as I’ve gotten,” she looked at him then, eyes flashing with the full weight of the past and its consequences, “but I can only guess he’s grown tired of his own men’s failures. And I’m not going to stop. Not until he kills me.”

His head turned, as if to look into the bunk, but he stopped before completing the motion.

“He’s your father,” he replied carefully, and she couldn’t place the tone of his voice.

It edged on disbelief or distaste, but he spoke as if it were an oath. As if it should mean something.

“The only blood he cares about is that he spills. He’s lost the ability to feel it on his hands.” She glanced past him to the room where the child slept, where he wouldn’t. “Can you say the same?”

He didn’t answer her at first, instead finally turning to match her gaze.

He sighed, a drawn thing that hissed from his helmet, as he shifted to lean a shoulder against the hatch frame. 

“I’m not so sure anymore.”

The admission was distracted. Genuine.

“Then you have a choice to make. I’ve made mine.”

And the vow set her teeth and felt good in her bones, a steadying weight that anchored her, held her together where the world would have her fall apart. Her life was her own. For better or worse.

The small space fell silent, only the occasional gust of wind howling its burden beyond.

He watched her for a long time.

She found herself wondering how.

* * *

Time crawled.

Her hands had gone entirely numb with cold, even under the layers. She flexed them every so often to be sure she still could. The muscles along her arms and shoulders were stiff and screamed their dismay at the motion.

It was getting colder. She could feel it in the sting at the shells of her ears and her burning nose and cheeks, anywhere bared skin met the air.

The Mandalorian had left his post a while ago. He'd hesitated, taking a look around the space before leveling a final glance at her and climbing above. 

She tried to fight it, but she had to stand. To move. Do _something_ other than sit in her thoughts because they still would not settle. If anything, they clashed harder in her skull leaving a pulsing ache to spur from the wound along her brow.

It was the first time she’d thought about it in a while, the bite of the cold an encompassing distraction from the sear of her skin there. Fingers rose gingerly to explore. She winced at the contact and couldn’t help but recall the gentleness of gloved fingers against her skin as they had done the same, their expertise something beyond her.

The raised flesh was rough beneath her fingers, but no blood stained them when she pulled away. She was glad to be done with it. Couldn’t wait for it to heal and be gone from her face with the memories it held.

She ran her fingers through her tangled hair, releasing it from its binding to let it cover her ears and neck. She stretched then, rolling her shoulders and letting her head fall back to stare at the roof of the ship. A huff past her lips and she watched the vapor cloud disperse above.

The Mandalorian worked on something overhead. She could just make out the steps of his feet as he moved.

It set her in motion. She reached up to grab a rung of the ladder for support and rose to stand.

Her legs felt wobbly beneath her, the cold and the ache of holding her weight joining forces.

For a moment she just stood there, pulling the blanket tight around her shoulders and letting blood flow back into the parts of her that needled beneath skin.

Her eyes found the cot room. From where she stood, she could just see bottom of where the little one rested inside, his own matching linen wrapped around him with a care that furrowed her brow.

She took the few steps to cross the hall, keeping them light as she took in the tight space, the act feeling like a violation of privacy though she could not conjure a reason why.

It wasn’t much. A small bunk, if it could even be called that, rested inside. Empty hooks hung over the head of it along the back wall. There was one that had more wear than the others, the first hook on the left. She imagined its where his helmet would hang while he rested.

She forced her attention from it, down to the small bundle laid carefully along the cot. Just far enough in so that he could not roll off, but easy to reach if needed.

Only his face could be seen, his lips drawn in a soft frown and eyes shifting slowly beneath their green lids in sleep. The rest of him was swaddled in brown. She’d never seen such a creature. The sight suddenly reminded her of the tubers that grew wild in the soil of her home world and drew an unwarranted smile to her lips.

As if he could sense her presence, large eyes blinked open.

It was only then that she noticed he shivered, unshed tears catching the light and glistening with the faint movement.

Her smile faded, a feeling of helplessness swelling to take its place. She turned to look toward the ladder. Something willed her to call for him. To let him know.

She turned back and it caught in her throat. A tiny hand had found its way up from beneath the covers and reached out for her, three little fingers curling in the air.

For a moment she froze, survival instincts warring with others she could not name.

A soft cry trembled from its lips and the sound tore something beneath her sternum.

With it, she could deny him nothing.

She released the blanket open at her chest, bending down to carefully take him into her hold. He was so terribly little, the weight of him more linens than body, as she pulled him close against hers, using her free hand to wrap her blanket back around the both of them and hold it closed.

She could feel the velvet soft press of his cheek where it rested at the bare skin along the base of her neck. It was icy against her. She pulled him a fraction closer, tucking her chin to look down at him.

“You’re not made for the cold,” she whispered. “I hate it too.”

His lips curled and he made a soft chirping sound, all a bird lost of its wings.

She nodded as if to answer him.

“Where I’m from,” she continued, “the sun is close and warm, and there’s trees as tall as monuments. Flowers of all colors and grasses every shade of green. It would suit you,” she brushed a hem of the blanket away from his eyes. They blinked at the movement and cleared with her words, focusing intently on her. “And the rain never betrays us by freezing.” She added wryly, a grin blooming on her lips. 

His mouth tried to mimic hers, though his small frame still vibrated in her hold.

She eased his wraps higher along his cheeks, tucking them close around him.

“No need for the brave face little one,” she shushed, rocking them unconsciously. “We’re in quite over our heads, aren’t we?”

He cooed again and she took it as a yes. It drew a quiet, breathy laugh from her.

“It’s going to be okay,” she tried to soothe, not knowing exactly whom she was attempting to convince. “I have to believe it will be.” She shifted him in her hold, tucking him lower against her chest to share the warmth there. His ears perked beneath the covers and she took in what she could see of his face; the soft fuzz of his skin, his tiny button nose, and the shadowed wrinkles around expressive eyes. They were bottomless. “My name is Eira and it’s very lovely to meet you. I’m sure you have some interesting stories to tell.”

He made a lively sound then, attempting to turn his head in the wraps. It took him a moment, but he managed to wriggle free of them just enough to peer past her arm. Another happy chirp cracked from his lips.

She turned to find where his attention had wandered and froze where she stood.

His silhouette cut through the darkness.

The Mandalorian watched from a few feet away. He had made no sound, but now his presence was palpable. Tension radiated from him and thickened the air.

“He was cold,” she said, pulling the child close.

The bounty hunter’s fingers curled and relaxed at his side. He didn’t move otherwise.

“He needs a heat source,” she continued fervently, eyes dropping over the hard metal of his chest plate. “And there aren’t exactly many options here.”

The white noise of complete silence grew loud in her ears before his shoulders finally relaxed. His helmet tilted forward, line of sight falling to the little one.

“The storm let up,” he said. “We’ll have to build a fire.”

* * *

He’d done what he could with the few tools he had available to him.

More of the control panel now blinked with his handy work, hours passing as he attempted to repair the connection to the backup alternator. He recalled the way the Ugnaught had shown him to sheer the ends of the wires of their insulation before reinstalling them carefully into their ports. He did so, and the communications panel flashed to life. He nearly slumped at the light.

Sending the distress signal was risky, but it was one he had to take. There weren’t many people that he trusted, and even those he did, it was with a cautious sort of dejection, born of necessity more than anything else.

It was why the covert was his only option. Their secrecy would remain intact on such a barren land, and if they received the transmission, they would come. He had to believe that.

For a while he sat and took in the landscape through the windscreen. The storm had all but ended, leaving only small flakes of snow to listlessly fall to rest against the blanketed ground. 

And for a moment, he let himself regret every choice that led him there, a stifling sense of frustration overcoming him and curling in his blood. There was a time when he would have no issue suffocating such emotions, burying them deep beneath oaths and creeds of old but this was one of the rare times he wished he could rip his helmet off, if for nothing more than to shove the hair from his face and swipe the cold sweat from his eyes. 

His ship was stuck in snow, his bounty sat uncuffed and unfathomable below, and the child struggled in sleep.

It had been what made the decision to send out the distress call an easy one. His options were few beyond that, and the growing void of desperation in his chest had threatened to swallow him whole.

When he heard the soft cry cut through the silence, something he realized he was always subconsciously listening for, it drew him quick from his thoughts and the pilot seat.

He was coming to learn she was bold with her words, but her actions nearly broke through the façade of calm he wore, like his armor, to protect himself more than those around him, when he descended the ladder and stopped at the sight.

Her back was to him, hair loose and draping long down it. He could see over her that the cot was empty. It brought his hand to wrap around the grip of his blaster.

But then the rush of his heartbeat settled in his ears and he could hear her talking, a soft sound that started low and muffled as he fought to even his breaths.

She was soothing the kid, her voice lulling in a way that clamped his jaw and cracked his composure. It was an aching reminder of a time that ghosted along the edge of memory, before the destruction, his mother curled at his side and whispering to him when the nights grew too dark and the wars raged too close.

Somewhere in the haze, he’d heard a name.

His hand slipped from his gun. The child must have heard it.

A sense of protectiveness took her eyes when she'd faced him and pulled the child close to her chest. His lingered on the way her hair framed her face, casting a shadow across her features that sharpened her cheek bones and left light to reflect almost dangerously in her eyes.

The kid really did have a way with people that he was still figuring out for himself.

But even wrapped and defiant as they were, he could see they both trembled.

She was right. They needed heat. And it would not be found surrounded by cold steel.

* * *

The sun set faster here than he’d hoped.

He spread a decent sized tarp along the snowy ground, just beside the base of the boarding ramp.

The night winds were nearly still, and it was a small blessing where such things were wearing thin.

It left a new disquieting silence to take the air, no insects or nocturnal wildlife making themselves known. Still, he scanned the horizon. 

Only the ship could be seen with the naked eye in the darkness, it working as a makeshift breaker for what was left of the elements, the hollow engine protruding out far enough overhead to shelter them from sporadic flakes of snow.

He went inside to unhinge a thin, curved trough of scrap metal from the storage bay and grabbed the lip of an empty crate. The metal dropped heavy over the snow a few feet in front of the tarp. He placed the crate on top of it and smashed it beneath his boot. The exertion felt good.

The fire was set shortly after, a quick blast from his wrist sending the dry wood up in crackling flames.

Heat radiated against the beskar and warmed him almost instantly. He let his eyes slip closed for a moment, lost in the relief.

They opened to the sound of feet padding light against metal. 

She stopped at the far end of the tarp, the child still in her hold.

He could sense her attention on him but refused to meet it, watching the flame instead.

After only a moment's hesitation, she eased them down close to the fire, settling the child in her lap and holding both hands out in search of her own relief. The child shifted beneath the blankets and he imagined he was trying to copy her, as he was prone to do.

It was still unsettling, seeing him in her hold, but if he had learned to trust in anything, it was the kid’s instincts. He couldn’t be sure how much the little one was able to grasp or the pace at which his species learned, but he’d seen the child’s sense of character firsthand. His ability to read people in a way that had taken decades of training for he himself to learn. But he showed no signs of unease at that moment and it slowly chipped away at his own.

“He usually eats around now,” he said, turning his head to face them. “Are you hungry?”

It drew both pairs of eyes up to him.

Fire caught in hers for a moment before she nodded.

* * *

The bone broth was the best thing she could ever recall tasting as it warmed her throat and thawed her core.

He had set a whole pot of it atop a primitive range over the fire, pouring some out into two small wooden cups just before it boiled.

At first, she had eyed them warily where he sat them beside her. He had not brought a mug for himself.

The child, though, grew restless, wiggling free from his wraps and walking the few steps across the tarp to plop down between them, picking one of the mugs up in both hands to take a sip. Only then did she drink too, transfixed by the little one’s ability to walk and eat on its own. It was unexpected.

The warmth of the fire felt good against her skin and relaxed her in a way she hadn’t felt in days.

The Mandalorian sat a respectable distance away, his armor reflecting the fire’s light as if it burned just as hot. His head was turned down. He worked on something along the vambrace covering his forearm.

She let her eyes roam over the metal that sheathed him nearly entirely. In the brighter light, without the weight of his eyes, she took in the details of it. How it curved sharply and shifted over his shoulders when he moved. The way the belt across his chest plate rose and fell when he breathed, stocked with bullets the length of fingers. And finally his helmet, serving its purpose of dehumanizing whatever lie beneath it, menacing in its own way.

It was more comfortable though than the glimpses she’d caught of the man underneath. The one that had closed her wound and fetched her blankets. The broth, warm in her hands.

“You can ask,” he said, startling her, though he still seemed engrossed in his work. “Everyone does.”

A soft heat rose to her cheeks at being caught.

She swallowed and looked away.

“I was actually just wondering if you were going to eat,” she returned, taking a sip from her cup and hoping it hid enough. 

“No.”

She looked down at the child then, who had nearly finished his portion.

“How did you come to find this one?”

The Mandalorian glanced over.

“I was hired to retrieve him. Didn’t go as planned.”

She couldn’t help the spiteful turn of her lip.

“That happens to you a lot, doesn’t it?” His head turned sharp to find her. “I can tell by the state of your ship.”

A snort left him then and he went back to his task, dismissing her. She imagined annoyance lined his features and it nearly made her breathe a laugh of her own.

A new train of thought sobered her.

“What did he do to deserve it?”

It stopped him again and she could just make out the shift of the cowl over his neck as he swallowed.

“He didn’t deserve it. That’s why he’s here.”

It widened her eyes.

“So you are protecting him,” it was meant to be a question, but something about the way he’d tended to the child confirmed the answer long before she asked. “Is that why we were attacked?”

He stilled and met her eyes.

“Yes.”

She nodded, the validation tightening her fingers around her cup.

“Why would anyone want to harm a baby?”

His head shook faintly in response.

“They won’t,” was all he said and the promise in it was irrefutable. 

“Good,” she returned low, watching the fire flicker harsh against his helmet.

The little one cooed then. He held out his empty bowl before him.

“More?” The Mandalorian asked him, earning a delighted babble.

She watched as he took the cup from his hold, refilling it halfway, and held it still so the child could grasp it securely in his own time.

The small act clashed so hard against everything she thought she knew that it nearly robbed the breath from her. Mandalorians were supposed to be nothing more than bad company. Mercenaries of murder and war. Legends passed down through generations of pitiless crusaders, hunting and maiming without mercy. 

But this one made soup.

And cared for a child.

And wasn’t as bad as the stories would have one believe.

Once the little one was settled, he held the pot out to her in offering.

She lifted her cup and he carefully filled it to the brim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eira: pronounced as [AY-ruh]: Means "mercy" in Old Norse.  
> I'm not a fan of Y/N or other forms of reader insertion so I did some research and found this name fitting.


	5. The Snow

Sleep wouldn’t come to her that night. Not really.

There were times where her mind would drift, threatening to teeter over into beckoning darkness, but with every crack of the fire or shift of the wind she had jolted awake.

The static cold of the night was nearly worse than the windstorm. Warmth from the flickering flame did all it could to thaw her core and shins where she lay on her side facing it, close enough that it nearly burned her cheeks. But the snowy ground just beneath the tarp and the icy air against her back cut straight through her layers and nipped at her skin.

She gave up somewhere in the middle of the night, pressing an elbow to the ground to rise into a sitting position. She rubbed ash from the corners of her eyes with the backs of her thumbs before turning her back to the fire, drawing her legs in close, and cloaking her blanket around them. 

The Mandalorian sat in a position similar to when she’d first tried to lie down, though now he reclined back some against a worn looking rucksack. His hands rested over one another above his belt, legs out before him, boots crossed close to the fire.

She had not heard him move to fetch the bag or tend the flame, but it still burned bright, as if just lit.

His helmet tilted toward her when she rose.

He said nothing.

The child was swaddled tight in his wraps again, resting in the shadow against the bounty hunter’s thigh, so close that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. He snored softly in deep sleep. It was a pleasant sight after his earlier plague with cold, but she nearly groaned with envy for such a relief.

Instead of wallowing, she searched the night sky. 

The storm clouds had parted some, thinning out completely in areas, allowing scattered clusters of stars to shine through brightly against the darkness. She had seen similar sights on many worlds, but never so remarkable due to this particular planet’s complete absence of light.

She would’ve called the spectacle beautiful under any other circumstances, but for now it was simply an escape. A distraction from the biting chill and the pulsing ache in her chest that she feared was becoming a permanent ailment.

The same ancient nightmares stung at the back of her eyes. Her nerves were frayed, her bones felt heavy, and she longed for something to settle the chaos churning her heart.

She blinked away at moisture. This was no time for such a thing, with the cold and present company. She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth to keep it from trembling.

And breathed through it, deep breaths, in the nose, out the mouth, the swelling wave of panic a familiar adversary that could be controlled so long as she kept her bearings.

Her heart still beat in her chest, quick but intact. The fire was a steadying warmth behind her.

And for reasons she couldn’t quite place, stranded in the snow and desolation, she realized she felt safer than she’d had in a long time. Far from the clutches of her father and the burdens he would force upon her shoulders.

She filled her lungs again, blinking away the last of stubborn tears, before letting her eyes fall back to the pair that rested beside her.

The child was trusting in a way she couldn’t quite comprehend. Quick to reach to her for help, and now molded against the man beside him as if the connection brought him peace.

And at that moment, she found she coveted it. 

She leaned over, close enough to gently press the back of her first two fingers against his soft cheek, just long enough to feel its warmth. She was glad for it. It eased her heart.

“Does he have a name?”

The Mandalorian had followed the motion, but her voice swiftly drew his attention up to her, as if he’d been waiting for it.

He stayed silent for a moment, always watching.

“No,” he finally said, with a faint reluctance that had her fighting to hold her hands still in her lap, a sudden spur of restlessness in her ribs.

“Do you?”

His head ticked. Her heart did something strange in her chest while she waited for his answer.

He shrugged a lazy shoulder.

“Mando works.”

“Mando…” her eyes faltered as she let it roll on her tongue. It was sour and she let it show. “Is that not a slur to your people?”

She watched the question move through him, metal flexing as he shifted. 

“It serves its purpose.”

Her eyes searched his armor then, stopping where fire danced across his chest. She imagined it would burn to the touch.

“Like your helmet?”

A few heartbeats passed before it dipped.

“Yes.”

She nodded in understanding and settled more comfortably over the ground.

She wasn't sure what she had been looking for, but it was honest.

It was enough.

* * *

The child grew restless along the confines the tarp and she knew the feeling, her doing her best to keep herself distracted, and the little one from wandering too far from the fire to keep his temperature.

As soon as day broke, Mando had divided out the rest of the broth for their breakfast, feeding a few more planks of wood to the flame, before disappearing into the ship. She could spy him above through the window of the cockpit every so often as he worked.

It had started to snow again a few hours later, just beyond the covering of the engine overhead, but it did not carry the violence of the day before, instead riding only a soft breeze as it fell.

And she could tell the exact moment the kid spotted it, his whole body turning and eyes growing wider than she’d thought possible, catching the light of the sun, even hidden as it was behind the thick clouds above. He dropped the rock he had been playing with to the ground.

“Your first snow hm?” She asked him then, watching as he waddled towards the far edge of the tarp. “Hey, wait,” she crossed it too, kneeling beside him to earn his attention. “Here.”

She reached up to adjust the shawl around her neck, finding a section that was not smudged with dirt or anything darker, and tore a long strip from an already fraying hem. She ripped the strip in half, lifting the child’s tunic where it rested against the ground, just enough to wrap both of his small, bare feet.

A little hand pressed to rest against her forearm for support when she lifted each one. He smiled and babbled at the attention in a way that showed tiny teeth. When she looked up at him, she couldn’t help but share it.

“You are something else,” she said, checking each of the knots over his feet to be sure they weren’t too tight before rising to stand. “Come on, let’s burn off some of that energy.” She tilted her head toward the snow, and he started off before her with thrilled but sluggish steps. 

She laughed at his mirth and kept close beside him.

* * *

The gritty rations were tasteless in his mouth. He ate just enough to settle the pang of hunger beneath his ribs.

He was used to eating quickly. It came with the career path. The food was finished in minutes, but still he lingered. His helmet lay on the seat beside him where he stood at the rear of the cockpit, resting back against the latched door hatch.

More than the food, he had needed the reprieve. A moment to himself to clear his thoughts and settle his mind.

The left engine would power on now. There was still no turbine for it to propel, but he had been able to rewire the chassis so that the severed connection from the explosion was recircuited, and he had sworn to himself right then that when they made it off this damnable planet, his first stop would be back to Arvala-7 to repay the Ugnaught for his teachings in an amount that was way past overdue. Whether he accepted or not.

It was cold in the cockpit, but the bite of it felt good on his face. He unlatched his right glove, letting the back of his bare hand rub at tired eyes.

Sleep had been a fleeting thing that night, but it also had its moments. Times where he would just barely slip into its void and his mind would go blissfully blank.

It was around then when the dreams would usually start. The same ones that would spring him from sleep when he was much younger in the darkness of the covert, even its protection not enough to stave off the explosions and flames and fear of that which was already lost.

These days he woke silent, empty of breath and sweating the same, but anyone beyond his armor would never know his affliction.

It’s how he knew hers, the way she’d looked at him after giving up on her own valiant attempt at reprieve, threadbare and haunted in a way he was too well acquainted with. 

It had made him want to do something. Move or speak or –

But the words wouldn’t come, and it wasn’t his place, so he had only breathed away the urge and waited, watching in silence as she’d searched the stars, just as she’d done the night he’d tracked her down in the forest.

This time though, there had been no cover from the trees, bright starlight settling an ashen white across her face and neck, glinting over the moisture brimming in her eyes.

And though he’d looked away as soon as he’d caught sight of it, the image was burned into the back of his own like a brand.

The more he saw, the more a part of him wished he’d just left her on Takodana. Listened to Maz and walked away from this one. He wasn’t going to get paid anyway if her words held merit, the warning in her voice reverberating in his ears. And that’s what it was. She was warning him.

If she was a liar, she was one of the best he’d ever crossed paths with. And that was saying something with the number of smugglers and swindlers and other professional scum he’d brought in over the years.

She didn’t seem to fit the mold though. One he hadn’t fully been aware of until she’d broken it. No begging or bartering. Just truths, and warnings, and innocent curiosity; especially where the kid was concerned.

He didn’t like that he knew her name. It tasted like soot on the back of his teeth when he swallowed.

A squeal from the child cut through the silence, muffled by the walls of the ship, but still reaching him at his height.

He automatically slipped his helmet on and moved away from the wall to look down through the side of the windscreen.

They played in the snow.

She was crouched beside him, elbows resting against her knees, just beyond the overhang of the engine. The kid toddled near her, chasing after the falling flakes. Both his hands were held out before him as he shuffled, trying to grab at them before they could land.

The look on his face whenever he caught one brought back bittersweet memories of Sorgan. He liked the atmosphere there. It would have been a perfect world for the kid to have a life. To play and grow and just be a child, not a sought-after prize. To be properly cared for and not just barely scraping by like they were.

Just then he tripped in the snow, a little wrapped foot catching against the terrain, and the Mandalorian twitched where he stood as if he could prevent it happening from high up within the cockpit of the ship.

The woman – Eira, did instead, a single hand reaching out in reaction to carefully steady his chest before he could fall forward.

Her lips moved, something reassuring, he guessed.

She smiled. 

It drew another happy squeal from him, an almost laugh, before he returned to his mission.

The kid liked her.

It was nice to see.

All of it. 

He watched them for a while until his eyes lifted past them toward the sky, searching for anything other than clouds.

* * *

The child seemed to relax some after the exertion, settling down by the fire at her side and finding something innately fascinating about the wraps on his feet. He fidgeted with the left one.

“You should leave them on,” she said, knowing well enough that he most likely couldn’t understand, but it was nice to have someone to talk to. She glanced toward where the sun hung low beneath the clouds. “Night will be falling again much too soon.”

His ears perked at her voice, though she was otherwise ignored.

She crossed her legs and pulled a blanket tight around her.

“I envy you, you know... The way you sleep,” she continued, slipping her hair out from under the cover and over her shoulder. It smelled of sand and smoke. “I’d say it's not fair but that wouldn’t exactly be true, would it.”

She breathed a sigh and closed her eyes to the fire, its warmth still washing comfortably over her face, though it dwindled.

She didn’t know how to feel. The air hurt. The planet was awful.

But there were far worse options than the situation she found herself in. She’d seen a few of them firsthand.

He would still try to turn her in, she knew. Currency and its promises had a way of turning even the best men into monsters. Ghal would use that fact to his advantage like a puppet master toying with string instead of lives.

Mando would never make it to the temple if he returned with her. It was standard procedure, bait and trap, and though he seemed smart enough to be prepared for such a thing, she doubted he’d ever had to face the likeness of those that made up her father’s army.

They were viciously trained. Started young and robbed of the choice to do much other than learn to fight for their survival. When Ghal gave an order, it was to be followed as if the sun would not rise the following day should they fail. Because it wouldn’t for them, and that fear had festered and bred enough to place most of Bakura under his thumb.

She had watched it happen slowly, young and moldable, as he brought her along in his shadow to show her the way to rule with an iron hand. The way he expected of her. And she had stayed silent and watched the onslaught long enough to know their capabilities.

The bounty hunter would be killed and the child –

The breath left her lungs and she did what she could to send the thought with it, blinking her eyes open.

She flinched, a hand lifting to rest over her heart.

Mando stood at the end of the boarding ramp facing them. His cape rustled silently behind him in the soft wind.

“You are too quiet,” she accused, feeling the beat quickly slow to normal in her chest. “It’s eerie.”

He didn’t move for a moment.

“I could stomp or something.”

She almost laughed at the unexpected dryness of his voice. Almost.

“You would think that would be the only sound that thing is capable of,” she waved broadly at his armor.

A short breath cut from his modulator.

His stance shifted and he nodded his helmet toward the ship.

“Can you come with me, I want to show you something.”

At first she didn't move, perplexed by the request.

He reached down to pick up the child and started toward the ramp.

She pushed herself up from the ground and followed, the loss of the fire instantly making itself known as they left the cast of its warmth.

He led her to the rear of the ship. It was a pantry area, she realized, stocked with foods and supplies. A small water basin jutted from the far corner. Crates were stacked neatly along the walls.

He sat the child on one and turned to face her.

“I sent a distress call when we landed and haven’t received an answer yet.”

Heartbeats passed while she processed. Her brow furrowed, not quite sure where to place the information.

“To who?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he shook his head. “I’m just not sure how long we’ll be here, so I suggest we keep it amicable.”

She did laugh at that.

“Amicable? I’m not the one who dragged you here.”

“And yet?” he retorted, eyeing her over his shoulder, before turning towards the shelves along the wall. “The rations are stored here, along with water,” he pointed toward the basin. “If I’m working and you need anything, they’re at your disposal.” He paused, looking toward the child who was entranced by his words. “That being said, I’m not sure how long we’re going to have to make them last…”

“I’ll make sure he’s fed,” she reassured him, not quite sure why she felt the need to. The little one would not know hunger or its pain. “Just get us out of here.”

He turned to her, growing still and silent. She lifted a brow and held the full weight of it.

“I will,” he nodded, and it sounded like a vow to her ears.

It was the best thing she’d heard in days.

* * *

After doing a bit of searching and growing familiar with the space and the items she had to work with, she settled on hot oats. They sounded warm and heavy, making the decision an easy one.

She set to work, filling a pot half full with water and bringing it, a wooden ladle, and a small pouch of dried oats out to the fireside. The flames had been fed again, curling wildly a few feet high into the night. The sight warmed her a little before she was near enough to feel it.

She set the pot to boil. The oats cooked quick and swelled full in minutes while she stirred them.

She ladled a serving into two small bowls, setting the child’s down on the tarp between them just out of his reach. “Give it a minute, it’s very hot,” she warned, setting her own serving down beside it.

For a moment, she looked over them, steam rising from the bowls and dissolving in the air. It would be enough for the hunger, but the child would need something more nourishing than the oats alone. She remembered seeing a few packs of dried fruit tucked high on one of the shelves. They would have to do.

Another thought struck her then. She'd never seen Mando eat. She was sure he did while he worked or when he would seem to simply disappear, he had to have, but he hadn’t touched the broth the night before or for breakfast.

There had been ration bars stacked against the left wall of the pantry. A few were missing from the top. It clicked into place and made her frown. They smelled worse than they tasted, she knew, meant to sustain and not much more. The thought of them turned her stomach.

It set her in motion. She picked up both of the bowls from the tarp. The child yearned toward his. “I’ll be right back,” she promised moving behind him to enter the ship.

The dishes were set along a shelf of the pantry and she reached up to grab for a pack of fruit, ripping it open and dropping a few pieces into each of them. She took one and moved quick, not liking the idea of leaving the little one outside alone for too long.

Something chided her at the back of her mind as she turned the corner. She only faltered when she reached the base of the ladder.

He was up there somewhere she knew, but she had never been, and it stuck her feet to the floor. Her eyes fell to the rung that had once trapped her hands. A spot of dried blood dotted the ground beside it. Her forehead panged as if to mock.

She swallowed and looked up.

“Mando?”

It echoed up through the corridor. For a moment, there was only silence in answer.

“Yes?”

She couldn’t see him, but his rugged voice echoed back from above.

“Can I come up for a moment?”

“Sure.”

There was an undercurrent of uncertainty in his reply that she could hear from where she stood.

It was only fair she supposed, as she used her free hand to steady herself while she climbed.

She stopped just high enough to see over the ground of the top level. It was as small as the rest of the ship. A short hallway led to the rear door of the cockpit. It was open. An intimidating long rifle hung on the wall to the right of the entryway. Through it, she could see some of the switches along the control station flashing.

He cut off her view when he walked out toward her, stopping in the frame of the door.

His shadow fell over her when she looked up at him and her heart did something funny in her chest, a new uneasiness stirring her nerves and whispering doubt in her ear. A chill crept down the back of her neck. She blamed the cold.

“Here,” she managed softly, setting the bowl of oats on the ground before her and sliding it toward him some.

His helmet tilted down.

“It’s too cold for rations,” she added when he said nothing, moving to carefully lower herself back down the rungs of the ladder.

She had almost lost sight of him.

“Thank you,” he said, the words slipping quiet from his visor.

They stopped her, one foot hanging in the air.

Her heart betrayed her again and she fought to keep it from her face.

“You’re welcome,” she nodded, letting her eyes linger on where she imagined his would be a moment longer, before lowering herself to the ground.


	6. The Lesson

Mando sent out a second distress call that night.

His armor felt heavy against him. He was on edge. Pent up in his own skin.

He didn’t like being still for long. Anywhere. Much less on a block of ice.

But the warm oats had helped, settled his stomach and warmed his bones, the sweet bite of dried fruit still lingering on his tongue. It was a pleasure he would have denied himself had she not brought it to him. He could survive on rations alone, but the child cared not for them. He had been down that road already.

But she had _brought_ it to him, a purely instinctual fear still not fully clear of her eyes as she’d looked up at him, and it was impossible for her to know just how well founded it was.

He wouldn’t hurt her. Not as he knew others had. It wouldn’t be a fair fight.

But there was a time when that wouldn’t have been the case, wouldn’t have mattered. When the legends held merit, as his wounds still seeped and withered, and he’d stifled them with the pressure of his hands and the pull of a trigger, not much caring who was on the other end.

Now he lived with those scars too, regret still a novel thing that tended to sneak its way through his skin more and more often when he wasn’t watching it close enough or busying himself with distractions.

He hated it. Hated being stuck and unanswered. Hated the dead silence of the cockpit at that moment. Hated that he hated it.

He gave the controls a halfhearted shove before trading them for the warmth of the fire.

* * *

She could feel him watching her.

Her mother’s fear lined face vanished in a blur behind her eyes, replaced too fast by blinding orange flame. Her heart slammed against her sternum.

She stayed on her side along the ground, only her chest moving as she fought to catch her breath. She blinked a few times to force the world to come into focus through the haze.

Mando rested a few feet away, and she watched the steady rise and fall of his cuirass, the fire catching and reflecting off the bullets along his belt when they moved against the night.

She knew she was staring. Knew that she should turn her eyes away, but her mind continued its attempt at convincing her that it was its own separate entity, that she was alone, and she fought back against the crushing weight of it by trying to match his breathing.

“Can’t sleep?” He asked just as her pulse left her ears, his tone giving away that he already knew the answer.

“No,” she whispered, and the warm air brushed against her arm where it curved beneath her head.

“Me neither,” he divulged to the stars.

And the admission gently drew her from her own plight as she instead tried to imagine what could keep a mercenary from their rest.

Though when she thought about it a bit longer, her nerves slowly settling and gaze falling to the sleeping bundle tucked against his side, she knew the thought wasn’t entirely right.

“Why?” she turned her head against her arm to see him better, brushing her hair back from her face where it had fallen in sleep.

“The cold doesn’t help.”

It surprised her.

“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed, a corner of her lip turning up. “It’s nice to know you actually are human under there. You seem unaffected.”

It earned her his regard again, helmet rolling to face her.

“I wish.”

She tugged her blanket up tighter around her shoulders and neck.

“At least one of us is content,” she said fondly, looking to the little one again.

Mando gave a quick nod.

“You’re good with him.”

The compliment rose her head from the ground.

He had been watching them. A part of her knew that already, one never seeming to stray too far from the other, like moons trapped in their orbit. 

“So are you.”

A soft huff passed his modulator, stained of disbelief.

“I’m not so sure about that.”

The truth in his words stung a little. She had seen enough to know that the trust the child showed in him had been earned at very least by gentle hands, and yet he believed himself incompetent.

“He is fed. He is warm,” she watched the way his helmet turned down to find the child with her words. “And he is very clearly protected.” A dull heat rose in her throat and stung at her eyes. “There are too many children that can’t say the same.” 

“I know,” he murmured, voice dipping as if divulging a divine secret.

It rose her onto her elbow.

She stayed silent, though her heart skipped a beat, and eyes questioned where her voice wouldn't.

“Faceless beasts bound by their oaths. You remember calling us that?” he asked, and though the question lacked any real accusation, she could feel every ounce of blood as it left her face. “We may be bound but we are not the beasts of the legends. Not by choice. I need you to know that.”

For a moment, there were no words. She could only stare back at him. And then she couldn’t be sure if it was the lack of sleep or the warm conviction in his voice, but something made her bold. “I’m starting to. Your armor doesn’t protect you as well as you think it does.”

A breath left him then, a mirthless laugh. He sat up straighter beside her.

“That’s my point. I am not the one who needs protecting.” The words rasped from his throat. “The galaxy is ripe with beasts, but the real ones never wear masks. They want to be seen. That you already know.”

Something ripped in her chest, the salve over the wound she’d been nursing since she’d left the soil of Bakura all but dissolving and spilling out into her blood like molten lead.

“Don’t.”

“You believe you know war,” he continued, “but you can’t. You left.”

She sat up quick, strands of hair falling across her face with the motion. Fire awakened beneath her skin, flickering hot in her eyes. She leaned forward, hearing his breaths as they cut from his visor.

He blurred.

“I didn’t leave, I escaped,” she hissed, taking every ounce of control to not wake the sleeping child.

“Exactly, and you shouldn’t have had to,” he returned calm, searing her further. “I didn’t have that option.” He paused, helmet declining to follow a pair of silent tears as they trailed down her cheeks to the tight scowl of her jaw. “But adapting to adversity is how we survived. There is no other way,” he nodded toward her then. “You know that too. I’ve seen it.” 

The declaration was soft, but the hollow behind her heart threatened to burst. She wanted to lash out, to strike, but no opponent sat before her. Only the truth. Her truth. It burned white hot in her throat and she suddenly needed to know his like she needed air.

“So you resign yourself to a life that robs you of who you are? Why? There is always a choice.” 

She was close enough to hear his breath catch.

“You don’t know who I am,” he said low, careful. “I wasn’t robbed of anything.”

His voice fractured over the last of his words and she wasn’t sure who he tried to convince.

She couldn’t care right then. It was a battle she wasn’t even sure why she was fighting, too similar to the one that raged in her chest.

“Is that how you handle adapting then? Blind veneration?” The thought hurt as it left her lips and she fought to steady her voice, arms wrapping tight around her middle to hold it in once piece. “How do you not let it suffocate you?"

Her eyes slid closed sending fresh tears to fall. Her mind screamed _weak_. Her own ribs felt like a prison to the wild thing inside that tried to rip its way out.

For a while all that answered was the crackling flame.

She stilled at the soft press of leather against her skin, the sharp smell of it and blaster fire claiming her senses. Curious fingertips brushed the hair back from her neck, ghosting across her pulse. His hand came to rest along the side of her face. He swiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb, the pad of it lingering near the corner of her eye.

Something whispered danger at the back of her mind, but the touch was unsure, tender. It drew from the chaos in her core and she couldn’t help but to lean into it in the darkness, following the relief.

“I put down monsters,” he said finally, easily, holding her a moment longer, his thumb passing slow beneath her eye again though the skin there was clear.

She opened them, trailing them over the wicked curve of metal at the jaw of his helmet before meeting his sightline, imagining the same hands, soft against her skin, effortlessly bending evil to their whim and snapping those that found pleasure in breaking others. To move the same...

“Teach me,” she said then.

He let his hand fall.

Her skin felt cold in the wake of the touch, but his shallow nod lit her eyes and bloomed a new warmth beneath her skin.

* * *

“Keep your elbow up.”

He’d slid her knife from his boot shortly after the sun broke the horizon, handing it to her with instructions to show him what she already knew, and she’d been trying for the better half of the morning. The frustration felt good, pointed and directed instead of roaming free, hot blood coursing through her muscles and driving her forward.

He stood primed but empty handed before her.

The smooth hilt of the blade was slick in her fist. She liked to think she surprised him, her attacks coming quick and keeping his blocks spry at first until she’d lunged wrong, shortening her stance.

He caught her by the arm, using her own momentum to spin her, and pressed his boot into the back of her knee with just enough force to send her forward to the ground. Again.

Vapor curled in the air when she growled and pushed herself up from the snow.

She brushed it from her knees.

“Again.”

Irritation moved her feet as she advanced and he easily blocked, the quick slash of the blade sparking across his raised forearm. His other hand shot out to grab her by the wrist, pressing it down so that her grip was forced to loosen. Another quick motion and the weapon was in his possession.

“Where did you receive your training?” He asked, holding it just out of reach when she made a wild grab for it.

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not,” he flipped the blade so that the glistening red hilt was held out to her. “I don’t think I could wind you up any tighter anyway.”

She breathed off steam and reclaimed her knife, doing all she could to not snatch it from his hand.

“Your offense is good, but you leave yourself open,” he added, a mild attempt at conciliation.

It loosened her grip.

“Not all of us have the benefit of being knife proof,” she retorted, pointing the tip of the blade toward his bracer, “If I blocked attacks like you, I’d lose an arm.” 

“Then keep yourself in a position where there’s no need to.” He closed the distance between them, pressing his hand up under her elbow to lift it a fraction higher. “You’re quick. Use it to your advantage.”

Her skin tingled where his hand lingered. She swallowed.

“Again,” she said.

He nodded and took a step back, awaiting her assault.

* * *

By the time the child roused from sleep, her muscles felt heavy and her face glossed with sweat where she lay on her back across the tarp. The chill of the snow beneath it felt nice. She rolled to her side, grabbing a handful of fresh powder and pressed it to her flushed cheeks and forehead. It melted against her skin, and she used it to wash her face as best as she could before dabbing it dry with the hem of her shawl.

A sense of contentment sat comfortably over her. The exertion had been what she needed.

Mando let her keep the knife after and she wasn’t sure how to take it. She could have dealt some damage a few times during their sparring if she’d really wanted to, but he could have left her a lot worse for the wear as well. He had been restrained in his offenses, more to instruct than to injure, and she faintly wondered if he’d ever taught others. He took a point of command as naturally as she took to hating it.

He emerged from the ship with a single bowl and a large rolled strip of dried meat.

The way he eased himself down onto the tarp next to the child let her know he felt their fight too. He ripped a few pieces of the jerky into smaller bits for the little one to chew and set the bowl in his reach. The rest, he handed to her.

“Protein. For the strain.”

She took it from him with a look of gratitude.

“I’m not sore. If anything, I feel better.”

“For now,” he nodded. “But you have a lot to learn.”

She ripped off a piece of meat and popped it in her mouth. It was tough but good, dried with hearty herbs and flavorful on her tongue, reminding her of a dish Maz would bring her during a particularly long shift.

“Have you taught others to fight before?” The question came between bites. His helmet tilted. “It just seems like it is all,” she answered his silent one.

“No.”

“Oh,” She swallowed, surprised. “Ever think your first would be a bounty?”

Air canted from his modulator.

“Maybe I’m losing my mind.”

A dryness took his tone that she found she favored most. Where she couldn’t reach him with weapons, she was learning she could with words.

“I understand the feeling.” Her eyes scanned along the horizon, the midday sun fighting to pierce the darkening clouds and reflect over endless white. “It’s this planet.”

She ripped a few pieces from the last of her jerky, dropping them into the child’s empty bowl. It earned her a bright turn of his eyes before he busied himself with them.

“Can we go again?” Her hand fell to rest over her hip.

Mando followed the motion before pushing himself up from the ground.

* * *

His boots crunched deep into the snow.

She swiped low for his legs, but he wasn’t falling for that again.

He dodged, sliding back some across the slick terrain before reclaiming his balance.

They had been at this for three cycles. He studied her fighting style and critiqued when needed.

And she improved.

It seemed to help her to sleep better at night and upon the realization, he had made it routine. More importantly, it kept him moving and focused on something other than the dreary sky during the day.

She had been taught by a heavy hand and it showed, her advances coming harsh and driven by anger. Versus someone similar in stature she would be pointed and deadly. But where she was quick, she was limited by nature and could not possess the strength to overpower the force of savage brutes, not with a knife alone. But there were many other ways to put down such things.

He had nearly considered questioning her ability with a blaster, but the thought of handing his over to a bounty to test the skill was one that was quickly overruled by reason.

Maybe he really was losing it.

It distracted him just long enough for her blade to come down across his left pauldron, slashing hard against the plating. He could hear the rip as it dragged over his cowl, too close to his neck.

Something carnal in him twisted the pit of his stomach at the sound of the damage. A hand shot for her, grabbing her hard by the forearm just beneath the elbow. Gloved fingers indented her skin. 

She froze in his grasp.

He stilled too, forcing down the unbidden impulse to retaliate. One that came on quickly, as naturally as he breathed. As he let it roll from him, it left a sickness in its wake.

She wore her remorse in cautious eyes. A look that slipped too easily over her features.

His hand flexed around her skin and he was suddenly plagued by memories of the way they’d glimmered in the firelight. The way she’d turned into his touch instead of the revulsion or disgust he’d almost hoped for.

He unclenched the fist that had primed for flames on instinct alone, forcing each of his muscles to uncoil one by one.

Red was beginning to blossom along her skin between his fingers. He released her, taking a step back.

“That’s enough for today.”

It sounded distant in his own ears.

He was no good to her like this, so he left her standing in the snow.

* * *

The clouds released their fury that night, the impending storm building for days.

She had just enough time to pick the child up from the ground, dragging their tarp and blankets behind her up the ramp before the snow flurries blew sideways, dousing the fire in seconds.

Wind gusts hissed against the craft, nearly causing her to lose her footing at the lip of the entrance. She tugged the ends of the linens inside and quickly flipped the switch she’d seen Mando use to close the boarding door securely behind them.

She hadn’t seen him since that morning, but she knew he was inside somewhere. He was angry with her, but she wouldn’t be the one to press the matter. Cutting his cowl had been an accident. She hadn’t expected him to tuck his shoulder, where he would usually raise an arm to block. He had left himself open just as he would nearly growl at her not to do over the course of their spars, and she had simply added another notch to the already fatigued fabric. He could always take up the skill of sewing if he sulked. 

There were more important matters at hand. They would have no fire inside the ship, and the temperature was already cold enough to sting.

She shook a few straggling snowflakes from one of the blankets, wrapping it around the child who looked up at her with tired eyes from the crook of her elbow. “You can sleep, it’s alright,” she promised, keeping the concern from her face and trying to copy the way Mando wrapped him, tight but not constricting. 

“Give him to me.”

His voice came quiet from behind her. It still made her flinch.

She did carefully, fighting off a chill of cold as she let the small bundle slide from her arm into his hands. He wrapped another layer around him securely while she took the last one up from the ground and pulled it around her shoulders.

For a while, Mando held him, leaning back against the lip of the cot room and going still.

She did what she could to conserve heat, settling down against the inner wall of the ship and pulling her legs up close beneath the cover. Her arms crossed over her chest and she held tight to her elbows. It kept her body from shivering, but just barely. The storm rocked the ship and her breaths were drawn between clenched teeth while she tried to focus on keeping them steady instead of the growing loss of feeling in her toes.

After a while, Mando moved to ease himself to the ground. The child slept contentedly in the hollowed space between his arm and chestplate. The man supporting him though was still tense. She could see it in the way he held himself. The way he wouldn’t look at her.

Though when she thought about it, it had been that way for the last few days.

In the mornings they would train until she struggled to keep up, her stamina leaving her long before his. Meals were spent in what she wanted to believe was comfortable silence when she was too tired to fill them with words. Mostly he would vanish into the ship, only to emerge at night to rest by the flame. Or so she thought anyway. There was no way to be sure he even slept without seeing his face.

She had never wanted to more than when he’d reached for hers, if only to search for the reason why.

It made no sense, served no purpose. Yet she had yearned for the touch, all the same.

The realization warmed her more than anything else on the ship could. She swallowed at the thought as if to wash it from existence.

His hands were forged to break, the way he fought proof enough, even restrained as he was when he would show her a flaw in her attack, or the way he felt unmovable beneath her blade. How his unyielding grip would halt her whenever she got too close.

But it hadn’t hurt. Not really. And it could have, had it been his intention. 

It turned in her mind for a moment before settling in her chest in a place that felt forgotten and the words fell sure from her lips.

“It didn’t hurt.”

His helmet moved but the sight of it still aimed at the floor.

“What?”

The word barely passed his visor.

She tilted her head as if to search his downturned eyes.

“Something’s troubling you. If it’s about earlier, I’m fine. You didn’t hurt me.”

He looked at her then.

She straightened in the drawn silence. Doubt crept into the back of her mind, convincing her that she was very wrong, until his shoulders dipped as if he could no longer hold them up.

“I wanted to,” he finally said, guilt thinning his voice, and where it should have raised chills upon her skin, it did something to pacify her instead.

She recalled his words from nights before.

“Impulses are a result of adapting,” she reasoned carefully, bringing his own logic back to him. Attempting to return a favor. “I’m sure most beings that come at you with a knife don’t stop unless you make them.”

He stayed quiet for a long time. She didn’t need to see his face to know he couldn’t quite believe her.

It moved her, her hand pressing against the chilled metal of the floor. She shifted her weight to sit right next to him, her shoulder pressing gently against the fabric beneath his pauldron.

The change in temperature was almost immediate. His body radiated heat. It made her shiver.

At the touch, he went rigid at her side. So much so that the child stirred with the motion, his lips moving soundlessly for a moment until he relaxed back into sleep. She stayed silent for a few more, watching his little features settle back to peace.

As they passed, she could feel Mando slacken beside her too, his breath coming easier and arm resting more firmly against hers.

“See,” she whispered, looking over at him.

He had to tuck his chin to look down at her. She could just see the edge of his sightline.

His huff rocked them both. She liked the gritty sound of it at her new distance, though it let her know he still couldn’t believe her. Now she suspected it was more her actions than claims.

“You’re very warm,” she said, sure she was making it worse, but at that moment it was all she could concern herself with. Her hands reflexively pulled her own thin blanket tighter around her.

He stopped her by gently shifting the child over to her in offering. She opened the front of her cover, easing him slowly to her chest, and pulled it closed around them.

Mando’s frame lifted beside her and she thought he was rising to leave.

Instead, he pulled his cowl out from behind him, draping the thick material across his chest and over them. He leaned across her, just enough to ensure it covered her entirely without putting too much pressure against the sleeping little one between them. The fabric held the smell of the forest and fire and carried his warmth. The man held her intrigued eyes as he settled back down close beside her.

“Impulse,” he finally agreed.

Her lips parted but no words came. 


	7. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Praise be to Wookieepedia.

The storm still tore against the ship, deep into the late hours of the night.

There was a thorn in his side that wouldn’t let him settle.

For a long time, he had held hope. Listened as well as he could over the screams of the wind for an alert from the cockpit above. The sound of someone, _anyone_ overhearing his transmission and returning one of their own. At this point, he wouldn’t even mind a threat. At least there would be a functioning ship left somewhere in the snow.

Wood to burn was starting to run dangerously sparse. He had used all but one of the empty storage crates and would soon have to start unloading the filled ones to keep another fire fed. There would be enough food to last a while though. That he had made sure of during their last supply run. But it had also been made back when there were only two mouths to feed.

The third one drew his attention every now and again when she shifted in sleep.

Her head had drifted back against the wall only minutes after he’d effectively silenced her, but a strong gust rocked the lifeless skeleton of the ship, taunting him, and nudging her cheek to press against his pauldron.

He’d silently cursed the wind, and the snow, and the Crest, and even his own actions, but he didn’t move.

It was a strange feeling, similar to the fight or flight response he had come to know early in his training, the brain having to make a split-second decision of whether or not it could handle such a thing.

Because he could already feel every square inch of where her body touched his, her shoulder tucked beneath his arm under the layers of his cowl and blankets. Where her thigh pressed against the edge of the plating that covered his own.

The black scar across her brow glared up at him. He could faintly smell how something floral mixed with smoke in her hair where it splayed near his neck.

It was distracting in a way that made him want to move. To get up and go to the cockpit, continue his work on the wiring, focus on anything productive. But something kept him pinned to the ground as if his armor had taken root.

The child slept too, his body tucked in her forearm across her lap. He couldn’t see the little thing beneath the covers, but the tip of a long ear brushed against the fabric just below his chestplate whenever he inhaled.

And while they both rested soundly against him, he had never felt more out of sorts in his life.

The covert wasn’t responding. Which wasn’t an entirely uncommon thing, as any communication through open channels held risks. Contact in general was only to be made when strictly necessary, but the fact that no scouts had yet made themselves known could only mean they had not received the signal.

Technically the Crest could still fly, even with only one engine, and though it wouldn’t be his first time having to do so, there was no way to be sure it could hold enough speed to break free from the planet’s atmosphere without exploding in the air. And that was simply not a risk he was willing to take. Not with food in their bellies and some sort of sustainability still able to be found.

So instead, he sat and breathed deep, letting the sound of the wind settle in his ears and his focus drift back to the warmth at his side. His muscles relaxed in it over the hard steel.

He leaned his head back against the wall and did all he could for them at that moment.

* * *

If she dreamed, she couldn’t remember it when something shifted her awake.

Mainly because she grew acutely aware of her position the moment her eyes opened.

Her head rested against Mando, most of the weight of her upper body supported by his side. He was still, all but for the rise and fall of his chest, the faint movement and warmth he shared the only testaments that something lived beneath the expanse of armor. It was uncomfortable against her face.

She peeled herself from him, moving carefully under the weight of the little one in her lap.

Instead of turning to find her like it normally did when she stirred, his helmet stayed rested back against the wall. She searched it for a minute, letting her eyes trace along the shape of his sight. Only the pale emergency lights from above reflected back.

His cowl still draped over her, the realization blooming something in her chest just as it had when he’d put it there. Now it was nearly too warm, the material trapping the heat of the man beneath it with her. He ran abnormally hot, more so than before she slept, as if he fevered.

It twisted her brow and she eased the material down off her shoulders to rest over the child and her waist.

If he was not feeling well, he was good at hiding it, though that couldn’t be very hard to do with a mask and voice mod. A larger part of her was concerned with why she cared. Survival was one thing, food and warmth a necessity in such a frigid world; even their training she could mark up as self-preservation.

But she was still his prisoner, amicable or not, just as much as when her hands were bound, so the concern that crept around the edges of her heart was as perplexing as it was unyielding.

Her eyes drifted down to the bend of his neck where his cowl gathered around it in dark waves. She hadn’t meant to look above it but with the way his head tilted, she could just see the sharp edge of a jawline, only for a second, before she forced every ounce of her attention to the ground in front of her.

She didn’t know much about his culture, other than the claims he had taken upon himself to disprove, but if he’d wanted to remove his helmet, there had been plenty of empty time to do so.

He didn’t. And it didn’t matter. But now she couldn’t help but wonder if the rest of his skin was just as tan or if his hair matched the deep brown stubble along his jaw. She bet his eyes were just as dark, though she had imagined so before, her mind creating a face where her eyes couldn’t. It would go well with his voice.

The wind bit a sharp howl outside the ship, and she tried her best to let the thoughts go with it. They were confusing and unsettling and she unconsciously pulled the child a bit closer in her hold.

She failed, her eyes moving again to linger on his chest and all at once it struck her that he was most likely asleep. It was odd, almost eerie, not being able to be sure, but he still had not stirred, not even at her movement or the rustling of the ship.

A moment later and she realized his cowl no longer rose and fell across him.

He wasn’t breathing.

It froze her in place for a heartbeat before she was reaching for the fabric below his neck.

“Mando.”

At the sound, he straightened, his head moving quick from the wall as he sat up. A hand shot down to wrap around the grip of his blaster. His chest heaved a breath of air beneath her palm.

She kept it there, holding still as he seemed to take in his surroundings, staring ahead, before swiftly turning to search the empty shadows at his right and finally looking over at her. Her hand slipped lower with the motion, pressing against metal. His heartbeat shook straight through it. Ragged breaths hissed from his modulator.

He looked around the space again as if he hadn’t been able to believe his own eyes the first time. Only then did his breathing begin to slow, and recognition cracked straight through her like the cold.

She had woken him from a nightmare. A horrible one judging by the sounds his helmet produced.

“It’s alright,” she tried, adjusting across the ground to face his side and placing a bit more steadying pressure against his chest.

It pulled his sight back to her. He lingered a moment before his helmet turned down and he looked to where her hand pressed flat against hard plating. She watched the light reflect from it with each of his breaths.

His right hand finally released his gun and fell to rest over her wrist. There was no pressure behind the touch, as if he was still trying to convince himself it was real. He searched the space a third time without any true pattern.

“It was just a dream,” she tried again in earnest, the words coming easy, because they were the same ones she would repeat to herself on more sunless mornings than she could count. “You’re alright.”

With them, he slowly calmed beneath her touch, his chest moving at a more natural rate, his breaths easing and eventually going quiet. Long fingers closed around her wrist just enough to hold her there.

He said nothing.

She could still feel the race of his heart.

She tried to fill the heavy silence with lighter things, distractions. How the lakes on Naboo held the clearest, most beautiful water she’d ever seen, birthing her love of swimming early in her youth when solar summers were long and life was much simpler.

How the colorful fungi flowers on Felucia grew wild and large enough to swallow a grown man whole; worthy of being great additions to her garden if they wouldn’t completely overrun it in a week’s time. Though beautiful, they were bullies and they didn’t belong in the soil of Bakura.

How she had visited Coruscant by choice once and only once. It was too loud. Too much. And if it were up to her, she’d never go again.

He had hummed his agreement at that, leaning back more at rest against the wall.

She let her stories trail off shortly after, their purpose served and her own mind tired of trying to focus on words more than where leather still held her wrist. Her palm felt slick against metal.

She must have lingered on it too long.

“I’m sorry,” he said, slow to release her.

The apology skipped her ears and stunned her heart.

“For?”

“That,” he breathed. “All of it.”

She gave a small shrug.

“No need to apologize for something you can’t control,” her eyes lifted to find him. “Does _that_ happen a lot?”

He didn’t answer her.

She distracted herself in the silence by letting the tip of a finger swipe away the smudges they’d left over his chest. It was still warmer than she’d imagined it would be without the fire to scorch it, but much less so than in his troubled sleep. Her touch grew curious when she neared the strap that cut across his shoulder. The bullets that lined it were thicker than her thumbs.

“What in the galaxy requires these?” She asked, a genuine wonder waning her voice. “Hunt bantha in your downtime?”

“Jawa,” he said low, watching the trail of her hand.

It made her eyes thin. She couldn’t tell if he was kidding.

“A bit overkill, don’t you think?”

“No.”

The sheer distaste on the word almost turned her lip. She held no personal quarrels with the little scavengers herself, but their lifestyle left much to be desired. It only made sense that a bounty hunter would cross paths with them often.

“For more than just sport I imagine.” 

He answered her by pointing to one of the more jagged of the soldering lines along the wall of the ship near the boarding door.

 _Oh,_ she mouthed. That explained a lot.

As she took in a few more of the stark lines across the wall, she absently let her hand fall.

He caught it in one of his, his palm pressing up beneath hers. When she turned back around to face him, his helmet was already tilted toward where they touched.

She looked too. The material of his glove was worn at the edges, leather creasing with the curve of his hand as if it were a second skin. It made her wonder if he ever removed them. Her own bare hand was small over his, amber fingertips exploring her pulse and leaving her hyper aware of the heart that flittered in her chest.

“I’m not taking you back to him.”

It flicked her eyes up to his sight so fast it nearly made her dizzy. It was as if the floor had fallen out from beneath her. Her lips fell open but she couldn’t speak, not right away. So she closed them and let a sudden swell of overwhelming relief twist her face instead. Her attempt to hide it brought her focus back down to their hands. She swallowed against the tightening of her throat. Fingers curled over the heel of his palm and she pressed them more firmly against it to keep them from trembling.

“Why?”

A thumb brushed idly over her knuckles.

“I’m just not,” he said, and it held a promise to anyone listening closely enough. She found she always was. 

She blinked up at him.

“Thank you,” she whispered, willing her voice steady as she tried to fit the severity of what she felt at that moment into mere words.

He nodded low, letting his hand fall to his lap. For a moment, hers hung in the air.

“Rest,” his helmet tilted toward the empty space where she had been at his side.

She moved almost numbly, adjusting the child in her hold and following the mellow command as if there were no other options. But there were now. He was giving them to her. And it swelled beneath her sternum, staving off a bit of the hollow feeling that had been threatening to consume her since she'd spotted him in the forest.

It made her tired, the sense of calm in its wake soothing the tension in the back of her neck and his warmth beside her a comfort where the rest of the ship was lacking. This time she leaned into it on purpose.

“Does this bother you?”

Dark fabric moved over his neck.

“No.”

With the reassurance, she pulled his cowl back up higher across his chest, over the cold plate of his shoulder and around her own. Her fingers clutched the warm material at the back of his arm. She watched the steady motion of his breaths for a long time.

* * *

The blaster felt wrong in her hand. Too heavy. Unbalanced to the point where whenever she pulled the trigger it kicked up nearly toward the sky.

Mando had left her to it when the sun hung low the next evening, the storm finally giving up its plight and the clouds all but parting from the sky. The planet had a real, actual sun after all, though its offering was minimal. Just enough to allow them short bursts away from the newly built fire until they would have to return to thaw. 

He’d had to shovel piles of snow from the boarding ramp and around the ship just so they could get off of it. And she had stopped in the frame of the entry way after he declined her offer to help, the child captivated by the flying heaps of white.

But her eyes had lingered on him. The way he moved, the broad sinew of his back as he lowered and twisted. The force of his arms when he sent a particularly large pile flying. She knew what they felt like now, sturdy beside her in the night. It was nice. Which was terrifying.

He carried the grace of his fighting style even in his work and the unrelenting thought mingled with his whispered words and stayed with her until her teeth ground, hands grasping even tighter around the blaster to control it. She tried instead to focus on the way the chill nipped at her nose and cheeks, clearing her mind and keeping it where she stood.

She couldn’t concentrate and it was irritating. Childish.

The sound of his boots crunching over the snow behind her didn’t help, but she did all she could to aim true.

All three shots struck just over the top of the metal canister, punching holes in the snow beyond.

Cold air filled her lungs. She held it there, steadying her arm as he’d instructed her to, and tried again.

A groan rolled from her. They had gone wide right.

She glanced over her shoulder when the sound of footsteps stopped. He stood a few feet back, watching.

Her shoulders squared with a bit more severity under the observation. She set her hips and aimed.

It was her closest attempt yet, one of the rounds scraping against the edge of metal, sending sparks flying. It relaxed her stomach where something like embarrassment was trying to grow, but his obtuse weapon would not best her. She adjusted her view down the iron sights, moving them just a hair to the left. She steeled herself and took a breath.

Both shots finally burned black through the can, sending it tumbling backward across the ground.

The small feat nearly shook her with pride.

“Did you see that?”

“I did.”

His voice mocked her almost casually, though it stole none of her elation. If anything, she liked the change of challenge.

“This old thing kicks like an eopie you know,” she turned, straightening her finger away from the trigger and waving the blaster at nothing in particular. “And it is just as stubborn.”

“Pot meet kettle.”

“Indeed,” she returned, glancing to the empty holster at his hip. “Do you have anything more precise?”

He snorted at that, moving forward to hold out his palm to her. She handed the weapon over, already guessing his intention and nearly rolling her eyes when he added five more holes through the can, the shots finding their target even mid motion as it rolled further away.

“You sure it’s the blaster?” He asked with a cock of his helmet, handing the safe end of it back to her.

“I’m sure.” And she dared him to doubt her with her eyes.

He went still for a moment. Her own reflection burned back at her. It obscured when he sighed and shook his head.

“Wait here, I might have something more suited for obstinance.”

Her mouth fell open and she tried to swat at his middle with her free hand. He dodged it easily, another amused breath cracking from his mod as he turned to head for the ship.

* * *

The boarding door hissed shut.

He’d flipped the switch more out of habit than anything, not exactly a fan of anyone knowing where the bulk of his weapons were stored on the ship. The compartment opened before him, the dark collection of artillery glinting back in the display lights. He looked them over for a while.

His blaster did kick, he would give her that. It had actually been a lot worse before he’d modified it, but over time its return had become second nature, the reverberation in his hold as organic as the beat in his chest.

But she had less experience and slighter hands and he had accumulated a broad variety of blasters that would suit them nicely. 

There was the DL-44. It weighed quite a bit less than his, but the heavy hitter was only made for close quarters and tended to overheat at the most treacherous times. He hadn’t touched it since the Ithor incident and the thought of pressing it into a confiding hand didn’t feel right. 

The few ion blasters he had would be the perfect size, but they were only truly effective against droids and his own kind, a single well-placed shot rendering all tech useless. Still, he favored them, having faith in his own capabilities where a droid would never know such competence.

That left the comparable sporting blaster. It was light and fast, an elegant weapon that he had removed from a nobleman that couldn’t have been any farther from deserving of the title. It was why he no longer held the ability to use it. He lived, but only for the fear in his daughter’s bruised eyes as he’d dragged him outside. Had they shown even the slightest hint of relief, the scum would have begged for the carbonite.

The weapon hung at his side as he switched the compartment closed and the boarding door back open.

A sense that something was wrong was immediate in its hold on him, a snaking restlessness that started in his fingertips and worked its way up his arms to constrain his shoulders.

He stilled at the sight.

The child no longer played by the fire, the nest of blankets sprawled wild and empty over the tarp. All that rested in them was the silver ball of the thruster, gleaming bright next to the curling flames.

A part of him knew, hoped, that she could have merely grown tired of target practice and chose to entertain the kid instead, as she seemed to enjoy doing. Though when he stepped further down the ramp to search where she had been near the rear of the ship, he only spotted his blaster, half buried in the snow as if it had been slung down hard.

There was evidence of a struggle. Tracks marked around it. He scanned them. They were fresh, the temperature of the indentions a fraction warmer than the surrounding slush due to the compaction. Bipedal. Humanoid. At least eight.

Rage he knew well, the way it sprouted from his chest and seethed beneath his skin in a way that was almost satisfying in its familiarity. It was what drove him forward most days, more so than payment, a feral thing that seemed only to be sated by his work. Now it mingled with a sense of possessiveness, of being stolen from, though the thought was tainted and hazed with red in the crushing dead silence. His eyes returned to the empty tarp and a new horror clutched his heart in a harsh fist.

It held a name. The only one that came to mind. One that passed his lips so quietly it barely met his own ears.

“Eira.”

He fetched his rifle from above and his blaster from the snow.

And he hunted.


	8. Penance

She had returned to her task of taking her frustrations out on the innocent, but now badly damaged cannister long before the gentle rattle of lighthearted teasing wore off. She hadn’t known he possessed such a capability.

Though she’d let Mando know she held little training with such weapons and made light of the utter obviousness of it, the act of him handing his blaster over was not lost on her. Even armored head to toe as he was. And now he was in search of another at her request. It made her finger falter on the trigger. Instead of pulling it, she deflated, letting the weapon fall to point toward the ground.

She wasn’t sure what to do. Not that she had exactly had a plan to begin with. But if he wasn’t going to turn her in, she was sure she would be dropped off on whatever planet he docked at next for repairs. If they lived long enough to get off this one.

And maker, she wanted to believe him, the words of promised freedom still humming in her ears. But the capability to do so still remained just beyond her grasp. He had been nothing if not frank, even sparse with words as he was, but she was slow to trust a man for hire, no matter their words or oaths. Especially one that still possessed a fob with her chain code.

It was born of necessity then, more than anything earned. That had to be it.

Without the shelter of his ship and the supplies inside it, she would die here. It was that simple. And that was much easier to accept and digest than inquisitive touches and a promise uttered much softer than it should have been from a hardened mercenary on the tail end of a night terror.

Except she couldn’t help but wonder what had changed his mind. It had to have been her attempt at warning him of Ghal’s true intentions.

The thought brought on a different kind of relief. The little one would keep his protector. And though she imagined the child’s rearing would not be ideal, surrounded by steel and bound to a path of destruction, it would still be better than anything she had ever known.

And she would do whatever it took to keep it that way, a piece of her heart already taken by the unblemished innocence in a pair of deep russet eyes.

It was why she drew the blaster over him on reflex alone, a powerful sense of protectiveness digging its claws into her spine, leaving just enough of her own volition to curve the barrel safely around where he sat a few yards away by the fire as she took aim and bared her teeth.

Four beings flanked him, human in stature, dressed dark for the cold in layers that hid their features. Black filtration masks sheathed their faces from their noses down. They had moved in complete silence, appearing around the front of the ship just as her thoughts had drawn her attention to check on the child’s well-being in a cycle that was becoming habit.

She glanced toward the ship to see the door sealed off and cursed beneath her breath.

At the sight of her drawn weapon, the intruders grew noticeably tense, their limbs inching down for their own. She took a step toward the little one to match their nearing distance.

“I wouldn’t.”

It hissed low from her teeth as she put on a show of valiance, hoping her heart wouldn’t betray her by beating through its cage. She willed the boarding door to open with another flick of her eyes, calling to the man beyond it in a way her constricting throat wouldn’t allow.

It didn’t move.

Her warning effectively stopped only one of them, a stout figure, clad in dark goggles, slowing near the front foot of the ship where he rested an arm against it. A long rifle was slung over his shoulder.

The other three were unswayed, moving with militant like precision as they fanned out to put some distance between them. It was a tactic she knew. Meant to keep her from being able to fire upon all of them before retaliation could be made. Her act was working.

“Don’t be stupid,” One piped up, his flat voice sounding wrong and distorted as it cut from his filter. “Drop the blaster.”

Her stomach churned at the order, curling her lips in disgust. It quickened her pace and she made it to the child’s side before they could reach him.

They loomed nearer.

With him safely at her heels, she shifted the barrel intently and fired a rogue shot into the snow just wide of the man’s left.

She lined it back up with his chest and stilled, hot air steaming from her lips.

They stopped.

Three little claws gripped the fabric over her calf.

“Final warning,” she seethed now, sensing the child’s apprehension.

Her eyes never left them as she leaned to pick him up in her free arm, pulling him close at her hip.

She moved to back them away, her steps measured. She just had to make it to the door.

One of the men nodded. For a split second, in the fog of adrenaline, she thought he was heeding her advice. But no, they advanced again. It was a signal.

She risked a glance over her shoulder.

Four more figures surrounded her flank, the tallest one close enough at her back to make her whole frame flinch around in an attempt to put him down the sights of the blaster. Mid-motion, it was knocked from her hand, _hard_ , the force shaking through her forearm to the bone. Her lips parted. A panicked name worked in her throat. Before she could free it, a gloved hand clamped down over her mouth. Another gripped high on her arm and suddenly she was being dragged backwards across the snow.

The child mewled a soft cry at the quick motion. She locked her arm around him tighter, digging her boots into the ground in a desperate search for any sort of traction. There was none to be found in the fresh powder.

She flailed instead, fighting against the hands on her. If she could just land a single blow hard enough to make one of them yelp, it could save the child’s life. She was given an unexpected opening when the hand over her mouth faltered with her struggle, allowing her use of her jaw. She bit down. Leather and cartilage tore.

The rest happened in a matter of seconds.

She could hear the sound of pained air being sucked through teeth. The hand left her mouth and almost immediately returned with bruising force, knuckles connecting flush against the side of her jaw. The world went fuzzy. Her ears rang. Blood seeped through her teeth to the tip of her tongue and she couldn’t be sure who it belonged to.

The child was ripped from her hold. She reached out for him through the daze of pain.

It was stunted by the unmistakable cold press of a gun beneath her ear. A clicking sound. The pull of a trigger.

The shot swept through her, pulsing through her neck and inching down over every vertebrae of her spine. Her shoulders pressed back. Muscles spasmed and locked. And all at once she lost the ability to move.

* * *

Consciousness faded in and out in a way that left her feeling like her body rested deep beneath the sea. Her eyes were stuck open.

All she could make out through them were footprints in the snow, every third or fourth spotted with deep crimson, contrasting harsh against pale white. Her head swam in the position it hung. She was being carried but she wasn’t sure how. Her nerves wouldn’t register anything. Not even the cold.

But she could faintly hear voices, distant, as if they echoed all the way down to her through the water.

_Would you give it up already?_

_I’m just saying, that wasn’t your brightest idea._

_The bitch bit me._

_He’ll have our heads._

_His head, you mean._

_Better there than here._

She tried to blink her eyes. They watered and should have burned from the wind. If they did, she couldn’t tell.

A soft cry cut through the voices and ceased her effort. Her breath caught.

_Shut that thing up._

_Why did you even bring it?_

_Why don’t you mind your business?_

The ground spun then stopped moving. Her stomach rolled.

Silence.

_Oh, don’t start your shit. We were sent on one mission._

_You don’t know what this thing is do you?_

_And you do?_

_Well… no. But I know what it’s worth_.

She was shifted again. Her head swung.

_What aren’t you telling us?_

A drawn pause.

_This right here, this is our ticket to freedom. Two snees, one stone._

Her eye lids finally obeyed, widened a fraction. Her mind screamed at her muscles to fire. They wouldn’t. She tried to focus, fighting against the beckoning release of unconsciousness that still marred the edges of her vision.

_Whatever, just keep it quiet or it’s going in the cargo hold._

_Why don’t you punch it like you do the rest of your problems?_

_Why don’t you shut the hell up._

The sound muffled and faded. The ground jolted and started moving again. Snow spun before her eyes.

They crossed as she lost her battle with darkness.

* * *

She was awakened again by the abrupt feeling of falling. The ground met hard against the thin skin over her knees and elbows.

Metal whined. Something clicked. The beeping of a control panel.

It was too bright, fluorescent lights bouncing off the white ground and stinging her eyes. It was no longer snow but something glossed. Hard and smooth and doused in the burning smell of antiseptic.

The pain was a good sign. She flexed her fingers over the floor where she’d caught herself just before her forehead could crack against it. They moved. She tried to curl them into fists, but they wouldn’t quite comply. Pressing them flat instead, she used her own weight to roll onto her back and stilled for a moment. She blinked, willing her eyes to focus.

More white. More blinding light. She squinted, rolling her head and taking in any details she could around her.

It was a cell. Small and empty, apart from a short bench that stuck out from the rear wall.

Across from it, column shaped bars lined the door from ceiling to ground, wide enough apart for her forearm to get through at most. There was no evidence of a locking mechanism on the inside.

Footsteps cut through her focus, echoing through the hall beyond as they grew closer.

Her hand inched across the ground near her side until it reached her hip. The sheath there was empty. They’d taken her blade. For a moment she let herself burn at the loss.

The sound of steps slowed as they neared the door. Her heart did the opposite. The rest of her muscles still wouldn’t move right, her brain firing off instructions, but they only twitched as if they listened but struggled to understand.

A figure appeared beyond the bars, not much more than a thin silhouette beneath the blinding light. Her fingers successfully fisted at her sides just as a code was pressed, and the cell door slid idly open.

It was a man. Dressed different from the ones that had taken her. Instead of snow gear, his lithely frame was fitted in a noble grey. He stepped in the cell and stark features came into focus under the lights.

Cold eyes sunk with age, lines stemming from the corners where they creased with unmistakable revulsion. Thin grey lips drew back into a tight line. The winged serpent insignia upon his shoulder rose her hackles. 

Recognition was instant, clashing with the words she’d heard his men speak as they ghosted through her newly returned consciousness like a distant dream. It was why they had been cloaked in masks. Why the cell’s inner locks had been removed.

The man had been a loyal right hand to her father for a long time, well before she’d come of age, and he had come to lead his battalions with the same stone fist. It solidified something deep in her chest that was nearly as foul as it was settling.

They had not come for the child. They were here for her.

“General Rhodin,” she all but hissed, voice thick as it worked from her throat.

His shadow loomed across her middle where he came to halt a step away. He clasped his hands behind him and looked down at her sprawled form as if she were a stain on his shoe.

“Child,” he returned nearly as harsh, regal accent sharpening the word to a point. His eyes flicked to the cut across her lip before returning to hers. “Petulant and mindless as ever I see.”

She tried to dig her elbows into the ground to press herself up, and though she nearly growled with strain, she could manage only inches. She dug her heels against the floor instead, using it as leverage to press her upper back against the wall.

“Didn’t think I would be seeing you again so soon…” she said while she struggled. “Or alive, for that matter.”

A wicked smile turned his lips.

“Your concern is noted, but I did not fail the Emperor then just as I will not now.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” she matched his feigned civility. This was a dance she’d taken part in before. He had been present in a few of her forced returns to Bakuran soil, in charge of the squads meant to keep her there, but this was the first time he had been sent to take command of the job himself. And she was sure he was loving every minute of it.

Her father grew desperate, then. The thought warmed her eyes and she aimed her words to strike.

“Always such a good hound, seeking his praise. Does it ever grow tiresome?”

It charged his expression. Fluorescents flashed in hard onyx eyes. He lowered himself slow to crouch at her side, reminding her of a serpent coiling to strike. “Charming as ever,” he seared. The back of a hand sheathed in black rose to stroke at her hair. She swallowed the bile threatening her throat and tried to crane her neck away. “But worry not, I’ve learned my lesson,” he nodded smugly, “you won’t possess the ability to escape again. And I can assure you, I will sleep better for it.”

Hot breath filled her lungs, the threat rolling over her bones and tangling her stomach. Her tongue swiped across the back of her teeth, sucking the blood from between them.

She had every intention of releasing it across his face.

But the lights above flickered.

Just as she glanced up to them, they cut off completely. The sudden darkness left her blind.

Chaos unleashed seconds after.

The sound of men wailing in pain rung from the hall, echoing loud through the tight space and making her wince. She could sense the General moving somewhere near her in the total blackness before the sound of her cell door being slammed shut stole her focus, the clang of the metal small in comparison to the sounds beyond it, but just as harsh in its finality.

All at once, blaster fire smothered the yells, the overlapping _thungs_ of multitudes of panicked shots reverberating off the walls too close for comfort and hueing the space between bars in a hellish red.

Her head ducked low on instinct. Her back was already braced against the wall and she tried to use the stability to inch herself away, farther toward the rear of the cell. A subdued sense of feeling crept over her with the renewed adrenaline that coursed through her skin. It still felt as if there were weights beneath it, but she could _move_. It was something. And anything was better than being useless on the ground.

Before she could put enough effort into pushing herself very far, she was being snatch up, an arm wrapping tight around her neck. A rough hand clasped her hard over the shoulder, pulling her backwards into a taught frame. She could hear the click of a safety being released. And for the second time in mere hours, the barrel of a blaster whispered near her ear, close enough that it tremored in her hair.

General Rhodin had locked himself _in_ , she realized.

Her hands reached up to pull against his forearm. It tightened just below her throat in response and she had to tilt her head back an inch to keep the flow of her breath.

A new sound captured her attention then, cracking loud over the mayhem and spurring her chest. It was still blaster fire, but different. Familiar. The sound coming in louder and more ornery due to its ostentatious barrel size, fired at a speed that should have been impossible for a weapon without automatic capabilities.

And it was only then that she realized how badly she’d hoped he would come.

She liked to think she would’ve been fine. She’d been here before, trapped in steel and trying to pretend that her hands didn’t tremble over the arm they clutched to keep from lacking oxygen. But she had not seen any evidence of the child since he’d been taken from her hold and she could do nothing about it from the confines of the one she now found herself in.

Mando could. 

It was only minutes, but it felt like hours before the crossfire began to slow, the steady stream of shots growing thin and finally dying out. Two more mangled hard against something just beyond the cell’s view in bright bursts of red.

And then total, unsullied silence.

Her heart stopped in her chest. Mando would be greatly outnumbered by the battalion, no doubt a deliberate act on Ghal’s behalf to show how easy it would be to reclaim what he thought to be his when his patience ran thin, and the show of frustration was the only trait she would claim from him.

Drowning in silence and without vision, her other senses were amplified. She could feel the fear that stiffened Rhodin’s entire form behind her, his own body betraying the coward that lie beneath the title he bore. The ghost of a chill crept from the metal pressed near her temple. Her heart thrummed out a harsh beat against her sternum, building over the static of stifling silence in her ears –

Until footsteps came through, each capped by the soft clank of metal, low and steady in the darkness. The sound was new but somehow familiar in a way that rose the hairs at the back of her neck.

It stopped just a few feet beyond the bars. She strained her eyes but could see nothing.

Rhodin faltered behind her, shifting so that she was more squarely in front of him.

“Put the blaster down.”

It was Mando’s voice, but it wasn’t, more a growl though his modulator than anything man. 

But it was confirmation enough, and she struggled against the General’s hold.

“They have him,” the words passed hurriedly from sore lips, just in time, before more pressure was applied and she was robbed of her voice. The blaster slipped from the side of her head to press underneath her chin, tilting it up.

It cocked. She froze and held her breath.

“Drop it,” Mando said again and the command of his voice only tensed her further. Men of power did not usually enjoy being robbed of it and it was a rough concept to overlook while pinned to one.

In a surprising contrast to how he stood, Rhodin’s voice came steady from behind her.

“Your services are no longer required Mandalorian,” the title slid from his tongue as if it were forked. “Remove yourself from the ship while you still can.”

Metal slid soft against the ground, the sound moving closer.

“I’m not the one in a cell.”

That tone she recognized as it caught in her chest and dragged.

The General forced a breath behind her, hot against her neck.

“I accepted payment,” Mando added a moment later, low and dangerous. “The bounty is mine.”

And at that moment, she wished she could see him. How he stood. How his helmet was positioned. Anything to read besides the blankness. Because she couldn’t be sure anymore on which side of the bars the real threat stood.

“If it’s money you’re after, I can take care of that,” the voice over her seemed to answer her silent concern with a practiced charm. It was nearly believable. “We can be reasonable men.”

For a while only silence answered.

“Prove it,” came his voice again, calmer, collected.

And she wanted to believe he was putting on a show too. Cursed herself for even considering putting her trust in him.

Until the blaster actually did fall from her chin, allowing her head to slowly lower to a more natural position, and as soon as the weapon was removed from her skull, she could hear the distinctive hissing sound of his grapple firing off.

She braced, expecting it to catch around her leg again or strike hard against her torso, but all she felt was a quick pressure against the back of her shoulder as the General was ripped past her. She threw her hands out to either side to keep her balance.

His body slammed hard into the cell bars with a sickening crack of bone. She kept her eyes trained forward instead of down. A muffled moan tainted the dark for only seconds before a single shot silenced it. The quick flash of the blaster fire glinted bright against silver armor before darkness swallowed them once more.

“Get under the bench. Cover your head.”

His tone left no room for question. She took only a second to collect herself before easing her way backwards, sliding one hand along the wall when she turned to keep her footing while carefully feeling for the protruding edge with her shin.

A light flicked on behind her and she could see again. She denied the urge to look over her shoulder.

The bench was only a foot or so away. She knelt to the ground and rolled herself beneath it.

The light flicked off.

A soft clicking sound followed by rapid beeping met her ears. It was a detonator, she realized with a new sense of dread. She hated explosions like she hated the cold, a bone deep thing that chilled and festered.

“Your head,” he reminded her again when she stilled at the sound.

She tucked her chin and pressed her forearms over her ears, locking her fingers tight at the base of her skull.

The explosion was smaller than she expected. It still shook through the small space like an angry aftershock. The quick burst of flame was warm against her skin. Sparks and shards peppered down from above over the bench, clinking across the ground around her.

The cell door whined as it was pulled the rest of the way off its hinges.

A heartbeat later and a gloved hand was pressed against her raised elbow, coaxing it away from the side of her head. She let him guide her to her feet.

“The cargo hold,” she breathed, trying to find her bearings. Her head spun and her legs still felt weak from being stunned and the rattling blast hadn’t helped. Her hand found a spot to steady herself over a patch of material high on his outstretched forearm. He was too still for the amount of trouble they were in. Too slow to move. “Mando we’ve got to go.” 

“Close your eyes.”

The request was just that and was far too soft for their current surroundings. She blinked a confused look through the dark before following his instruction.

A light turned on again, bright even through the back of her eyelids. She squeezed them shut a bit tighter in response.

“Who did this?” He asked her then, a forced control making the words pass deep through his modulator just as the pad of his thumb pressed lightly against the slick skin of her chin. At the question, her tongue tested the gash that crested the right swell of her bottom lip. She winced at the slightest bit of pressure and tasted copper.

“It doesn’t matter. I didn’t see him.” She said, and it was honest. She hadn’t had a chance to. “Not all of that’s mine,” she added when he lingered. Her grip tightened on him and she tried to crack her eyes open against the light mounted at the side of his helmet. His sight was still fixed low on her wound. “It happened at the ship. They were talking on the way here, it's hazy,” her head shook slightly, “but they have the child, Mando. One of the scouts said they knew his worth…”

And though she didn’t, surely not in the way they intended, she watched as the knowledge took hold of him, his sight lifting to her eyes, limbs growing rigid. The muscle of his arm contracted beneath her fingertips. His fell from her skin.

“Wait here.”

“Hell no,” she returned quick as he turned to leave, half expecting something of the sort to follow his reaction.

It stunned him still. He aimed the light on his helmet lower before he faced her again. It warmed the space between them.

“There’s more of them out there.” Frustration sharpened his voice.

“I’m aware.”

A noise left his throat as if he wanted to say something, to protest, but it caught in his visor when she continued instead.

“These are my father’s men. They’re here because of me,” she spoke the words aloud, though she knew he would have already determined them to be true. It was more to solidify it to herself, her mind made up. “I’m not staying here in the dark while they have him.”

He sighed, a gruff but yielding thing, as he reached for something tucked at his belt. His light shone down across it when he dipped his head and it glistened wickedly back up at her. It was a blaster, solid black and much smaller than the one in his holster. He pressed in into her hand.

“Then stay behind me.”

She did as they made their way through the halls of the craft.

And she had truly believed Ghal’s men were well trained, forged by rigorous command and an even harsher regimen, but she watched in awe as the Mandalorian made his way through their ranks as if they were nothing more than grains of sand swept up by an enraged tide.

He moved as if he were an extension of his weapons, more so than they of him. The prongs of his rifle would crackle an eerie blue when it sunk hard into flesh. Waves of fire cast angry shadows along the walls in quick bursts. Jagged screams would be abruptly ended while the sharp smell of burning synthetics and the once living filled the air. He worked amongst the shadows as if they claimed him as their own and she did what she could to remain in their protection whenever he’d press her back against the banking of a wall or the stacking of supplies, providing just enough coverage to block her frame but leaving the ability to see the carnage beyond whenever a blaster shot cried out or flames were thrown.

And it was not the thought of the enemy closing in that kept her pinned, it was him.

A part of her wanted to look away, but something else held her prisoner, something deep and sated by the fear that flashed in the eyes of those that would take joy in hers, that would use their power to harm her and the child. The legends and warnings were one thing, but to see him use the skills bred of his kind and forged in steel – his opposition’s demise was inevitable; _he_ was inevitable, all-consuming and releasing every ounce of the tension she’d merely glimpsed during their sparring, only this time he did not pull his punches or restrain the rage that radiated straight through armor like a second explosion and –

And it was remarkable.

Bodies littered their trail. She did what she could to not look down for too long as they made their way to what she could only imagine was the rear of the ship. He was clearly set on a path, one she guessed his helmet helped him to follow in the darkness, and every so often her hand would fist in the material of his cloak when he would flip the light on his helmet back off, sensing the next wave of impending attack before it came into view and restarting their gruesome pattern.

When they finally reached a hatch with a large wheeled apparatus upon its lid, Mando leaned forward to turn it without hesitation, throwing it open as if it weighed more of ash than iron. He descended before her and was silent beneath her feet as they lowered themselves into the complete blackness of the storage hold.

The idea was very suddenly sickening. That the child could very possibly be down here alone, in the dark. And if they touched him –

It lit a flame in her muscles that could have reached the deepest parts of the shadows had it set free of her skin. It tightened her grip over the rungs as she moved with a bit more haste.

Even in the dimness she could sense the enormous size of the space. She couldn’t make out Mando's shape at his distance ahead of her, but his light skimmed across the back wall for only a few seconds before it stopped over a spot and he was moving toward a crate tucked in the far corner.

When he peeled open the lid, a soft mewl barely reached her ears and she let her eyes slide closed for a moment at the sound and the sheer amount of weight it lifted from her. The child was here. He was alive. And she had not failed him as badly as she’d feared. 

She made her way toward them, tripping only once over something that felt like rope, before she reached Mando’s side and searched the child's tiny face with her eyes where he inspected with one of his hands, tilting it up to look at him.

Her own fisted where they hung, fighting the urge to do the same. “Is he okay?”

To her surprise, he looked entirely unscathed – a credit to the little thing’s resilience – even boxed in and left abandoned as he had been. Dark eyes blinked wide and clear up at his protector, glimmering in the light that shone down over him, before turning to observe her.

Just as her lip lifted, something moved behind her in the shadows.

Mando heard it too, because in one quick motion, the child was in her arms and the pressure of a vambrace met her ribs as she was tucked behind him. Before he even stilled, his weapon was drawn at his side.

The toes of her boots pressed hard against metal as she rose to them to peer over his shoulder, tucking the child close to her chest. She glowered through the darkness.

There were four of them again, still geared up for the snow apart from their masks. Two she recognized. One still wore his goggles, black orbs over his eyes. His rifle was drawn and pointed directly at them. The other one, the tallest, held a blaster in each of his hands, though one of them tilted at an awkward angle to account for the thick bandaging wrapped around the heel of his palm. She pressed her tongue against the split on her lip again just to feel the sting and let the burning there ground her.

Mando was a stone before her, solid and immovable, and it helped to dull the drumming of her heart.

“Figured you’d show up,” the injured man spoke, the same crass taking his tone as it had in the snow. “Are all Mandos this stupid?”

“It would explain a lot,” another one answered where he wouldn’t, clearly amused by the jab. She hadn’t been able to make him out at the ship, but his voice plucked at the haze of her memory and his words tugged on a strain of regret.

Armored shoulders rose and fell in a steady rhythm before her, even with their chiding.

“Hello? Anyone alive in there?”

“Maybe he can’t talk right,” the right most man slurred his words. 

Mando's head shifted a fraction to eye him but he was otherwise motionless.

“Or that helmet’s cloggin’ his ears,” Goggles chimed in, tipping his rifle up to gesture at it. “Bet it’s worth more than his pet.”

“Which one?”

And that did it.

In a blur, Mando was moving.

His kick landed high against the tall one’s chest, knocking the ability to speak from his lungs and sending him backwards against the ground. Two quick shots rang from his blaster, rendering the men at his right useless where they collapsed nearly in sync. At the same time, Mando's empty hand forced the barrel of Goggle’s gun up toward the ceiling where a shot was fired off too slow to hit anything more than the steel above. He snatched it from him, holstering his own weapon to put both arm’s worth of pressure into popping the man between the eyes with the butt of the rifle, shattering their coverings and knocking him out cold. He flipped the barrel to aim at his head, and she lifted her eyes away and set her teeth, still flinching when the much louder shot echoed though the air.

The silence settled for a moment, a heartbeat, before a groan came quiet from across the space.

Mando stalked slow toward the man who struggled over the ground to find his footing, and she could tell the second he made the connection, his helmet turning up from the fresh blood that stained his wrapped hand to find her eyes first before dipping just enough for her to know he watched her mouth as it pressed into a thin line, the motion flashing painfully in her eyes. And even though she was unable to see his face, the look stopped her heart where she stood and she bore his newfound wrath as if it were her own.

A second later and he was hauling the man up by the material over his shoulder, knees scratching harshly over the ground where he was dragged near her feet and released to slump forward under his own weight.

Mando stayed silent. Watching her. Waiting.

It was an offering, she knew. Another lesson. One that made her remember the blaster tucked in her waistband for the first since he’d handed it to her. There had been no need to draw it. It would have only been a distraction from the inescapable fate those against them had already been dealt.

And she had seen life taken without so much as a passing glance well before it was hidden beneath a helmet. Before she even possessed the ability to grasp the finality of such a thing.

Now she knew how to knock the breath from an opponent to even the battlefield. Knew how to contort flesh and bone so that it was removed from play. Knew precisely where to sink a blade to sever and break and end. But never had she done so. Maimed, sure. There were consequences to the life she chose, and she would fight to keep it until her last breath, hoping with what she had already accepted was a thinly veiled impossibility that it would never come down to stealing it from another.

But when the man’s face turned up to her and sneered, her fingers curled to fist at her side, and hate, pure and white, swirled wildly into the hollow of her chest and she _wanted_ to more than ever before.

Dry heat stung at her eyes and they rose to meet the familiarity of his blank sightline for a moment for nothing more than a break from the man’s vile gaze. This was a path she had been forced to contemplate before, persistently swayed and enthralled into believing it was right and just. 

But now she was being given a choice. And it was unnerving to her that in this instance, she could almost convince herself it was.

She couldn’t be sure which one Mando preferred of her. There was no way to tell. Nothing to read.

So she tucked her chin and looked down at the child in her arm instead. He had been silent for the entire exchange, not even the rifle fire stirring him to make a sound. It was a coping mechanism. A means of survival. One she understood so easily that she had to press her back more firmly against the wall for the sudden weakness it brought to her knees.

But no, it was not weakness. In that moment it was strength. One they were still alive to feel. 

She stared transfixed into watchful eyes, innocent at first glance, but now she knew there were nightmares behind them too, the same as all beings who had a price on their head and were hunted for sport. And they had been right, the men that now littered the ground. He did hold a worth, this little one, but not in the amount any money could pay. Not to her.

“He’s not worth it.”

The words were a curse as they left her lips, only stinging a little. She tucked the child closer, her hand rising away from the hair’s breadth distance it had been from the blaster’s grip to press gently over the back of the child's head, tucking his view away from the carnage that surrounded her feet as she moved from the wall and made pass.

She didn’t flinch at the sound of blaster fire behind her.


	9. Revelations

Hyperspace was beautiful.

She tried to keep her focus on it and only it through the windscreen, eyes tracing along the lines of starlight that tore across ink black until they nearly merged together, splintering the sky in white.

And when she wasn’t watching the stars directly, she watched the way they danced across Mando’s helmet and shoulder where he sat a few feet away at her left. He piloted the craft as if it were his own, the controls casting a warm orange glow before him. It was roomier than his ship, the panel large enough for a copilot chair. Three more lined the space close behind them and just beyond was a short step up to the observatory, where a large circular window gave view out the left side and met the rear wall of the space.

Even with the extra room, Mando kept the child close.

If he wasn’t on his lap, he was near his feet in the improvised nest of blankets tucked in a trough of metal they’d found in the storage hold.

There were bodies down there still, cold and mangled, and it made her skin crawl whenever the thought crept back to the front of her mind. Mando had removed the rest from the halls before they’d left, tossing them with careless abandon down the airlock and over the snow beneath. But instead of taking the time to carry the four remaining below up the ladder, he had only sealed the space off behind them with a harsh turn of the lock.

He hadn’t spoken since then. And though she wouldn’t press the matter aloud, the waiting and wondering troubled her more so than the silence, leaving her mind the work of filling in the blanks for itself. At first it had been needed. A small pause of peace from the violence and commotion to reassure herself that it was over. That they were okay. 

But now a part of her was convinced it was anger that still kept his form straight and tight where he sat. And it would only be fair. She felt it too, deep in her muscles, manifesting itself in the unrelenting urge to move or fidget or do _something_. But she forced herself still as what felt like hours crawled by, all but a finger on her right hand, which shifted a loose hem along the leather arm of her chair every so often.

She could handle anger so long as it was pointed, and right now it aimed directly toward herself.

She could still feel hands on her, tugging at her skin and dragging her body over the snow. The remembered loss of control would raise her heartrate, the sensation of not being able to will her own muscles to work. And then there was the child. The words of his worth still buzzing in her thoughts no matter how hard she tried to push them down. How they’d snatched him from her with a depraved sort of force that still ground like sand in her throat…

It almost made her miss the cold. A physical pain to distract her from swirling questions and the one that grew within.

There was always her lip, of course. It still throbbed whenever she set her teeth wrong or habitually checked it with her tongue, but the injury was nothing serious enough to concern herself with. Mando must have agreed because before they’d taken off, he had only handed her some gauze to stop the bleeding and left her to her own devices. She wasn’t sure what else she had expected, but as the adrenaline faded and the lingering chill from the planet behind them finally lifted from her bones, it left her feeling odd.

Her busted lip bothered him. The scene that still lay in the storage hold was proof enough.

And the realization had been an encompassing thing that still tried to warm her chest like a glimpse of the sun. His touch had been so gentle back in the cell that she could barely recall it, numb as she was, but now when she glanced at them around the controls, the back of that same hand was still streaked in blood that was not hers – but _for_ her, and the little one that fidgeted with black lace on his right boot.

She took a breath and found her center before turning slightly in her chair.

“Thank you.” It sounded small as it left her, doing no justice for what she felt right then.

Mando didn’t respond, didn’t move. Until his helmet finally leaned a fraction toward her, though his focus stayed on the stars. 

“That man in the cell… the General. I nearly killed him once,” she continued, giving voice to the memory just as it slid into her thoughts. She grimaced. “I was just a girl then, but he was already blinded by his pledge to my father… Took pleasure in rising through his ranks.” She stopped for a moment to rest her lip, leaving them parted slightly as her eyes fell.

He looked at her then, fully, his whole torso shifting, and it was the most she could recall him moving since they’d took to the sky. She watched a breath raise and leave his chestplate before she spoke again.

“I had a friend who I cared very much for. His name was Auden,” and the fondness the name carried drew a soft smile to her mouth, though it stung. “We used to lose ourselves in the forest, finding all sorts of new ways to ruin our clothes with mud and grime. It drove our caretakers mad," she gleaned. "He liked to fetch me wild everlillies whenever he’d come across one.” Mando tilted his head back some at that and she breathed a soft laugh. “We did not know their worth at the time, believe me, or I would have left a long time ago.” Her words trailed thin as she sobered again. “It was innocent. I loved him as one loves a brother, but my father would not have even that. So of course, instead of handling it himself, he sent Rhodin… who took absolute pleasure in threatening my friend’s life. I was warned that if I saw Auden again it would be for the last,” her brow rose, “so as Rhodin turned to leave my chambers, I stabbed him. Right here,” she leaned forward in her chair to press her first two fingers over a spot at the back of her left set of ribs. “I’m still not quite sure why. I hated him of course, but until that moment I had never let it drive me.”

“You should have aimed higher,” Mando finally gave flatly, and the sharp contrast to her growing feeling of heaviness drew a genuine laugh from her chest. It eased her shoulders and irritated her lip and she rubbed her knuckles over the space between tired eyes.

“It would have saved me quite a deal of trouble over the years,” she agreed with a nod, before letting her hand fall and looking squarely back at him. “I do not mourn his death, but there will always be another to take his place. Evil has a way of spreading faster than fate can keep up and most people are not equipped to handle such a thing,” she tilted her head and glanced at his hands again. “I think what you do is important… So thank you,” she repeated, hoping he understood as she now did.

He sat unmoving for a long time and she held his sight with unwavering eyes.

When he finally did move, it was to lean forward and she thought he was reaching down for the child, but a gloved hand turned for something in his opposite boot.

It was her blade, she realized as it caught the light from the passing stars and glistened in his hold. He held the handle out to her and for a moment she could only stare down at it.

“The mouthy one,” he said. “I don’t mourn his death either.”

Her brow furrowed. Her heart heard more than he surely meant to share. But then again, he never spoke without reason, and the feeling it brought was heady and strong, so she chased it.

“Why?” she asked, taking the weapon carefully from his hand and into her own.

His sightline dipped and he stayed quiet for a while. She didn’t think he was going to answer her, until it rose again to meet her eyes.

“Your face,” he nodded toward her in the barest motion. “I would prefer there be no marks on it.”

She looked away. She had to. Her heart fluttered or spun; she couldn’t be sure. And barely, just barely, the corners of her lips perked.

She rolled her knife in her hand, watching the soft light reflect from the crystals along its hilt before she holstered it at her hip, using the few seconds of distraction to gather her thoughts. She settled back in her chair and the balm of his words.

“I thought you were angry with me.” She admitted softly.

His helmet tilted at it.

“For?”

And the right answer was suddenly very hard to find. She went with the one that was still most prominent in her thoughts.

“For putting the child in danger.”

“You didn’t,” he returned quick, a dark touch of ire taking almost naturally to his tone. “I did, the second I found him.”

She blinked at that, the rough conviction in his voice reminding her of the scent of fire and his imagined faults when it came to the care of the little one. The one that sat warm and content at his feet.

So she had been on the right train of thought after all, but faced the victim of his anger instead of its source. It struck a nerve, just as it had the first time.

“You do have eyes under there don’t you?”

His head drew back an inch at the firm question.

“I do.”

“Then look at your hands.” Her words were clipped, and she let heat touch her eyes as if he were an opponent before her. He inclined his head and straightened in his seat, but this was a fight he would not win. “The blood. Is it his?”

She watched as he recoiled, as if she’d actually struck.

“Never.” And it was a threatening thing that rolled from his modulator.

“Then stop lying to yourself. If you hadn’t found him, someone else would have. Men like them,” she pointed a rogue finger toward the floor, “who maim for sport and chase fortune and wealth, no matter what the cost. You are not like them,” she decided then, her own conviction swelling to match his and she squared her shoulders firmly beneath the new weight of it. “You are not.”

And she wanted him to argue. Inclined him to with her unyielding gaze, if only to drive in further just how wrong he was. He obliged her.

“I am not a good man,” he gave low, a warning that once would have set fear in her eyes, but it only ghosted over her skin like a forgotten chill, passing just as quickly as it came. Still, she nodded, nearly a shrug.

“I never said you were.”

He didn’t respond to that, so she took a few breaths and searched the stars, letting the steam cool from her tongue before she spoke again.

Her eyes found the child.

“When you told me you were protecting him, I believed you,” she breathed. “I had no reason to, but I did. Now I understand I was right to.” She lifted a weary shoulder. “That’s all I need to know.”

Mando faced forward and silence fell over the space. Her mouth hurt and her muscles ached and at his reaction, she knew there was nothing left to say.

So she rose gingerly from her chair to stand, mindful of the shift of her weight.

“I’m tired. Does he need anything before I find a place to stretch out?”

Mando flipped a switch along the control panel, glancing down at the little one.

“No.”

The side of her hand fell to rest naturally beside her blade. She drew a breath.

“Do you?”

His helmet quirked though he didn’t look up at her.

“I owe you one,” she added then, matter-of-factly. “If you need me to stay up here so you can rest, I will.”

“No,” he repeated, but it was softer this time, something like gratitude showing in his voice.

“Okay.” And she gently let her hand press over his pauldron as she passed in an attempt to do the same. 

* * *

She couldn’t be sure how many days it had been since they’d left the ice planet. All sense of time was robbed by the unchanging state of space.

She had tried her best to find reprieve in the dormitory on the first night, choosing a small bunk closest to the entrance. It was filled wall to wall with stacked cots and she tried to ignore the emptiness the barren room opened in the pit of her gut.

But as she tried to relax, the entire idea of it unsettled her in a way that made the soft sheets feel as if they scratched and burrowed beneath her skin. The silence hurt her ears and gave her head too much space to fill. The darkness grew too thick and she began to wonder which of the beds around her may have once been filled by the bodies below.

After that, it was useless.

So she instead grabbed a few of the clean, folded linens from a small closet and a single pillow, passing with a defeated sort of weariness back up the hall and into the control room. She spread the blankets out over the ground, stepping out of her boots, and settled down with her back pressed to the rear wall.

The pilot chair let out a small creak as Mando turned, glancing over his shoulder to see what she was doing. She only met his mask for a moment before resting her head over the pillow and setting her eyes past him to the sky.

With the unending stars and sounds of steady breathing, sleep had come, faint but potent. And when she dreamed that night, he was there too. Nothing solid or tangible, just flashes of metal and bursts of flame. The scent of leather and the imagined warmth of his body beside hers. The tingle of her skin that came with his touch.

It was a comfort more than anything salacious. She had become accustomed to not wanting contact, as it had burned her one too many times before. But her dreams did not carry the same apprehension. In fact, that night, there was none at all.

And for the first time, when she awoke a few hours later, tangled in blankets while Mando still sat tall with his back to her at the command, she knew longing.

* * *

On the second or third day amongst the stars, they began to lose their luster.

She lounged against the back wall with the little one sat in front of her, doing what she could to keep him entertained with what little they had to work with. Which she had to admit was still quite an easy task, as he seemed to take interest in anything new that was placed before him, so long as it shined. 

But before long, even he lost interest in everything the small space had to offer, growing fussy in a way that had little hands tugging at the loose fabric over her knee.

“We’re going to take a walk,” she said, pushing herself up off the ground.

At the sound of her voice, Mando turned around in the pilot chair to face them, hands pressed flat against the armrests. He said nothing, but the smallest shift in his frame let her know he wasn’t fond of the idea. His sight followed the child who was already padding out through the doorway of the cockpit.

“Just around the main hall,” she promised, knowing well what still stained the ones beyond it. She stopped in the threshold. Something held her there a moment. “Would you like me to close this?”

He regarded her in silence for a heartbeat before answering.

“Yes.”

She nodded, turning to follow the child.

“I’ll knock when we’re done.”

The door hissed shut when she flicked the switch on the control panel, and she tried her best to keep her focus forward on tiny eager steps instead of anything behind her.

* * *

Mando almost immediately lifted his helmet from his head, setting it close beside him on the panel.

The air of the cockpit was cool against his skin and soothed his burning eyes. His body protested every move he made, adrenaline draining free of his veins long ago and leaving his muscles feeling both hollow and heavy in a way that had him resting his weight against an elbow over the control deck.

He was pretty sure the other one was busted open. It had missed its mark once early in his mission and struck hard against the unforgiving wall. Now it throbbed to the bone every time he moved. And then there were his ribs where a nasty strike surely bruised his left set, a bare-knuckled punch where he hadn’t turned into it quick enough to let bone strike beskar.

It was far from the worst outcome he'd ever been dealt and so long as blood didn’t stain through his tunic, he wouldn’t check either. Not until they made it safely to the sands of Arvala-7.

He’d come to learn that the ice planet they’d crashed to was called Hoth as he scrolled through the information on the enemy craft’s navigator, and leaving his own ship behind on it felt how he imagined the loss of a limb would. It wouldn’t be for long, he decided before even leaving the snow, he just needed to gather parts.

But the sheer relief of being back in the sky in any manner stifled even the worst of the physical pain. They were moving again, safe among the darkness. The child was unharmed, but this time had been too close, a panic too familiar, and it had actually scared him, _terrified_ him in a way he thought he’d left long in the past.

Her words after had been a comfort he was slow to partake in. Still, they met their mark. The first thing he had done after she’d fallen asleep that first night was wash the blood from his gloves. After that, when he returned to the pilot seat and watched the ease with which she slept along the floor behind him, he found it hard to keep his attention from her.

There were bunks. He had checked them first before throwing the breaker when he’d first made it to the ship. And though he was sure they would be more comfortable than the ground, it was easy to realize why no rest could be had in such a place. Especially for her.

_These are my father’s men._

It was only a small fraction of what still echoed through his thoughts, but as his eyes had fallen to the gash across her lip again and again, as if it were another beacon of her own father’s scorn, they sung the loudest. It was something he still could not fathom. Something that made him bristle and grind his teeth.

But she held a certain strength that was unknown to him. An ability to wield her rage in a way that did not leave destruction in its wake, yet rather the opposite. He swore then that he could still see the fire in her eyes as if they’d been open before him. The way she’d looked down over the man that had struck her as if she could lure him to death with nothing more than her wrath. The way she'd looked at _him_ after, matching his anger like the deepest reaches of night would a supernova explosion, coaxing and consoling and ending in equal measure.

It was quite an anomaly that not many dared. And he had always liked such challenges.

But now, alone and helmetless in the empty cockpit, he was presented with a new one.

He found no solace in it. The silence was nothing more than a taunting ring in his ears and a part of him had hoped the sensation would be left behind in the snow. But as he sat under the weight of the solitude, he strained to hear any small sound from the child in the hall and his head tilted toward the closed cockpit door, waiting to pick up soft steps or a sure voice coming from beyond it.

He slipped his helmet back on, the thought a bit too much for him to dwell on with the weight of exhaustion pressing heavy on his shoulders and the glare of constant starlight against his naked eyes.

* * *

The child could run.

It was more of a quick waddle really, but as soon as he had taken in every inch of the new and open space of the foyer, wide eyed and nearly bursting from the change in monotony, he had given her the task of keeping up with him, making it his mission to touch every metal rung of the polished veneering low along the wall as he passed. She could only wish to have as much energy.

It was nice though, the change of view and soft squeals of excitement that came from him every so often as she’d get too close and he’d take off again. He had truly made it through their ordeal without repercussion and it was still kind of incredible to her. Beautiful, really. An untainted purity to him that she very recently would have claimed completely burnt from existence, even long after the fall of imperial rule. And though they had tried, they’d failed.

There was hope yet, then.

She tuckered out long before he did, her bones still heavy and head swimming a little from the exertion and constant motion of space travel. She stopped and sat in a spot near the center of the hall, crossing her legs in front of her and keeping an eye on the little green blur as he made his rounds just out of arms reach. On purpose, she was sure.

Much later, she knocked as promised. Almost instantly, the door slid up and open and a stock-still suit of armor stood just inches away on the other side.

“Maker, Mando,” she twitched, a hand shooting up in the air between them for no real reason. The other cradled the child who had finally worn himself out. She risked a look down to make sure that was still the case.

Mando stood to the side to let her pass and as she did, she could swear the breath from his mask came a bit quicker, a small laugh at her expense. He could truly be much too quiet when he wanted to be, and she wondered if he even registered it anymore or if it just came with time and territory. “I just may take you up on the stomping,” she gave over her shoulder as she took the step up to the observatory window, gazing at the passing galaxies that flashed in the night. “Where are we?”

“Nearly there,” he said, moving from his spot behind her to head back toward the pilot seat.

Something heavy in his voice drew her head around.

He favored his left leg in a way he hadn't previously, just barely, all a predator trying to hide its wound from a larger threat, though the space around them was free of such a thing. She wondered how much else his armor hid. _For us_ her mind reminded her, not for the first time, as she glanced down to the sleeping little one and swallowed the painful feeling it wrought.

Instead of sitting right away, he rested a hand on the back of his chair and stared out into the gaping void of hyperspace.

The child adjusted in her hold, smacking his lips in his sleep and rolling his cheek more firmly against her chest. She waited till he stilled and settled, his warmth against her making her own eyes heavy, before she spoke again.

“You should rest then,” she finally gave soft, eyes finding a small tear near the middle of his cowl where he stood unmoving. The starshine casted a faint blue across his armor and she imagined there were patches of skin beneath that would match. “The course is set and I wouldn’t know how to change it if I wanted to.”

He was quiet a moment before he breathed a sigh. “That isn’t my concern.”

It tilted her head and she sent an intrigued look to the back of his pauldron.

“Then what is?” She asked. “You haven’t slept since Hoth,” and she could hear her own concern thick in her voice so she leveled it and added, “I would prefer our second landing be smoother than the first.”

His helmet turned to her then, sight meeting hers for a heartbeat before it shook with mild dismissal.

“Fair enough.”

He had ignored her question, she hadn’t failed to miss that, but she let it slide, watching instead as he walked evenly back across to the rear of the cockpit. Rather than heading out for the bunks, he stopped and sat across her blankets on the ground, resting his back against the wall.

She wasn’t sure what to make of it. Annoyance struck her first. There were more linens and pillows on the ship after all and if he’d looked it over for stragglers as carefully as she hoped he had before they’d stolen it, he should know that. But another part of her fluttered at the sight of him stretched comfortably across where she slept in a way that had her blinking eyes back to the stars when his helmet rolled to find her. She could feel his attention burning against her back.

“Come here.”

His voice tensed her shoulders and slid her eyes closed for a moment. It was a mild thing, more proposition than command, but it still caused her heart to do something uncomfortable in her chest.

The sense of apprehension must have won out over the plethora of other feeling she felt at that moment because when she turned slow to face him, he nodded to the cluster of linens at his side. “You need it too.”

The clarity took a bit to settle her chest, but he had been nothing if not honorable to his word. But this time there was no cold, no excuse to _want_ to close the distance and her mind still warred with her instincts, holding her captive for so long that she watched his helmet shift as if he could see them battling on her features.

She tucked the child the slightest bit closer and started forward.

“Sit here.” He pointed this time to a spot a few feet out from the wall near his knee.

She took a breath and did so, pressing a hand against the ground and lowering herself slowly so as not the jostle the little one. Her posture was rigid though she wasn’t sure why. Having him so near at her back was a new kind of rush that rose red low on her neck and warmed her blood. Very similar to the way she had felt when she’d first spotted his silhouette amongst the tall trees of Takodana.

“I’m going to move your hair.”

His voice was all modulator at her new closeness, warm and rough, and it inched slow down her spine. His hands nearly traced the sensation as he gathered her hair carefully in one and released its length to drape over her shoulder.

Her shawl was bunched low in its worn and ragged state, exposing the back of her neck and upper shoulders. She blamed the loss of the cover of her hair when a chill spread over the area just as gloved fingers pressed down along either side of her neck. They roamed lightly over her skin, not necessarily a massage, not at first, until at the touch her head fell forward and shoulders pressed up into his hands very nearly on their own accord. They pressed a fraction harder over muscle and she fought to keep her wits about her.

“What are you doing?” She asked when fingers trailed carefully up the sides of her throat.

“Looking for something.”

It stumped her. She turned her head and tried to find him over her shoulder. “What?”

A low sound of disgust left him, feeling heavy in her ears.

“It makes it that much worse that you don’t know.”

At that her whole frame shifted, turning against the ground enough so that she could see him from the corner of her eye. With the motion, the fingers of his right hand slipped across where the back of her neck met her hairline. Her shoulders flexed. He stilled. It was the same sensitive spot that she was careful not to bump with her brush or stroke with her fingers when she washed her hair. On a night in her youth, she had brought it up to a nurse in the healing clinics after suffering a broken arm and was told it was nothing more than an angry birthmark. Since then, she had always found it fitting.

Her hand reached up and behind her head to press her fingers just above his. She could feel the small, familiar rise of her skin.

“It’s a tracking chip,” he whispered, a distant disquiet in his tone that she knew wasn’t directed at her though it struck, hard and true.

“I…,” and she wasn’t sure what to say. What to do. The spot on her neck flared to life beneath her fingers and she could suddenly feel it like something writhed under her skin. It churned in her stomach and flashed red in her eyes in a way that was usually reserved for when she drew her blade. Mando’s hands slid to rest over each of her shoulders, holding her still over the ground where she swore it trembled beneath her. “It’s been there for as long as I can remember.” 

She could feel the motion of his nod behind her.

“It makes sense. Men like Ghal keep track of what they believe is theirs.”

The claim was surely meant as salve, but the sense of betrayal that swelled within her was all encompassing and misdirected and would not release its hold on her heart. “I’m sure it keeps you in coin.”

“It did,” he gave easily, countering her frustration by putting more pressure against the curve between her shoulders and neck. He slid his thumbs almost harshly along either side of her spine, forcing the muscle there to loosen. “Not anymore. It’s too easy.”

She couldn’t see where she aimed, but Mando caught the back of her arm, slowing her elbow to only press against metal where it should have struck. He squeezed his way back up her tricep, finding a particularly tight spot where her shoulder met her back. She tried to let herself relax under the attention, pointing her focus toward the almost painful release of tension more than anything that tore and gaped within.

“Can it be removed?” she tried, and it sounded as broken as she felt.

His ministrations slowed with the question, hands going soft against her skin. “It’s painful, but yes.”

She thought it over a moment, turning her body across the ground to face him completely. “I can handle it.”

His hands fell to his lap, unfurled and listless. He was quiet for a while, sight steadfast over her eyes. They reflected back at her and she tried to will away some of the hesitance she found there. It didn’t match the fortitude she’d hoped shaped her words.

“I know,” he gave finally, carefully. “I just wish you didn’t have to.”

And it broke her. Clean through, like the shattering of glass, a once solid, tangible thing left splintered beyond recognition. Her jaw hooked and she showed it only in the tightening of her mouth, the twist of her brow. Her eyes fell to the child in a sad attempt at escape. And she breathed deep, in through her nose, before parting sore lips just enough to set the ragged thing free.

Before it was fully gone from her chest, Mando’s hands were on her again coaxing her shoulders forward. She folded into him, her forehead falling to rest against the warm material between his pauldron and neck. She buried her eyes there, seeking solace in the darkness and smoky scent of fire.

The child was nudged free from her hold between them and a second later both of his arms were wrapping around her back, drawing her in closer so that she could feel the rhythm of his heart beneath his chestplate, thrumming flush against her own. She pressed a hand against the cool metal there to keep herself steady. The other fisted behind him in his cowl. And for a long time she listened to his breaths, pressing like a soft static from his helmet near her ear. She could feel them now, rolling against her as they rose and fell from his chest, and she used the steady sensation to calm her own to match.

She couldn’t be sure how long he held her like that. Couldn’t find it in herself to care. Because even in an embrace made up of mostly metal, she felt more comfortable and secure than she’d had since she was a little girl in the farthest reaches of the forest, amongst only the mud and wildflowers.

When the burning sensation finally left her eyes, she turned her head against his shoulder, blinking them to adjust back to the light of the cockpit. She curled more comfortably into him, shifting beside him and keeping the pressure of her body light against the side he'd favored. He held her there.

“I don’t hurt now,” she said then, the sound almost muffled by his tunic. Her hand rose higher over his chest to grip the top lip of the plating.

His head dipped as if to look for her, though she effectively kept her face close enough to the side of his neck to stay clear of searching eyes.

“Sure,” he breathed, pulling her a fraction closer.

Shortly after, fingers began to explore her hair, hooking every so often to roll a few strands before letting them slide free. The sensation mingled well with his warmth against her side and the solace of his hold and before long, her eyes were drifting closed between slow blinks more often than they reopened.

“Rest,” he said as her head pressed deeper against his shoulder, and when he draped his heavy cowl around her, there was no denying him.

Sleep came quick and warm and content - and without dream.


	10. The Ally Pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this house we love and respect Kuiil.

“So this friend of yours, is he a bounty hunter too?”

The soft sand rolled beneath their boots as she quickened her pace to keep up with Mando’s ahead of her. His cape rustled languidly behind him in the desert wind as he walked. The air was dry and arid, and she’d pulled her shawl up over her head to block some of the sun’s light, though her face still turned up toward the sky every so often, eyes slipping closed to let the warm rays kiss her skin. It had been sorely missed.

One peeked open just in time to watch the back of his helmet cock toward her at the question.

“No.”

She blinked away white sunspots and focused on the rifle he had strapped over his shoulder, its sharp forked prongs nearly meeting the rear of his knee and gleaming cruelly back at her. He’d made a point to grab it from the hook it had hung on for most of their journey before they'd left the ship.

“He _is_ a friend though, right?” she asked, wondering exactly what it was she was being led into. He had briefed her in the sky with the necessities, but they had only gone so far as the planet’s name and location. She had never heard of such a place, but he’d had the coordinates memorized and she’d decided to take that as a good sign.

“He’s a farmer,” Mando corrected, not looking back, though his pace slowed a fraction. “He’s aided me before.”

 _So a friend,_ she thought to herself, not risking speaking it aloud for the dispute it would surely begin, though it did something to settle her nerves a little.

Her attention turned over to the mountain-lined horizon, hazed with heat in the distance, and she tried to imagine what anyone could possibly farm from the soil on such land. It was barren, all but for rocks and piled hills of orange dirt, so parched from the scorching sun that it caught in the breeze with each of their steps.

That had to be it then, a moisture farmer, drawing water from the air where not enough to sustain anything would be found beneath the surface. The thought left her tongue feeling dry in her mouth. They had walked a long way from where they’d landed and still there was nothing but sun and sand in every direction, as far as the eye could see.

“Why did we land so far away if you know where he lives?”

Mando had slowed enough to walk closer to her side. The little one fidgeted with the silver buckle of the long rifle’s strap over his chest.

“The ship,” he started, carefully adjusting a tiny green hand before it could undo the clasp. “It’s an Imperial model. No need to spook the locals.”

She hummed at that, taking another careful look around the desert. “What locals?”

Mando did the same, his sightline scanning their surroundings.

“They’re there,” he assured, “but they pose no threat.”

It made her wonder what exactly he could see through that helmet of his, because though she shielded her eyes with her hand and squinted through the light, she still could make out nothing. “That’s not alarming or anything.”

He sent a quick glance toward her.

“The biggest risk here are the blurrg.”

He spoke as if from experience and her eyes thinned again, no longer from the sun.

“Blurrg?” She asked.

“You’ll see.”

And at the low draw of his voice, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

* * *

The hut was a tiny thing in comparison to the rest of the farm. She had to duck her head low just to get through the door. But almost immediately, the cool of the shade and the smell of cooking meat rolled over her and claimed every ounce of her attention as she parted the curtains to enter the main living area behind Mando. Her stomach grumbled softly in response, and she rested an arm over it, straightening to stand and letting eyes wander over the collection of wares and knick-knacks that filled every corner of the Ugnaught’s home.

He’d introduced himself to her as Kuiil with a nod of his head, and from the moment they’d stepped into his humble dwelling, she could not recall a time Mando stood more comfortably in his armor. His arms were crossed loose at his chest where he leaned back against the sill of a small window that let natural light warm the sitting room, watching silently as Kuiil fussed with dishes in a kitchen that was not much bigger than a broom closet.

Mando’s new demeanor relaxed her own and she took a seat on the small lounge beside where he stood, near to the child who claimed the cushion closest to him. He let out a small hiccup while picking at his toes and she watched him, simply for something to do in the silence.

After a few more minutes of stirring and preparing, the older man teetered across the space with a tray between his hands, bending to set it on the short tabletop between them, before taking his own seat on the matching lounge that faced theirs.

“You must be hungry from your travels,” he said, nodding toward the large tureen of steaming stew atop the worn silver platter, while carefully pouring out three cups of hot tea from the tall pot that centered it.

His invitation was as warm and raspy as the planet he called home, and it emboldened her enough to lean forward and serve herself a portion into one of the four stacked bowls he provided. The meat was gamey and spicy and the stew heavy with fern potato – and it was the best thing she’d tasted in a very _very_ long time.

Kuiil took a sip from his mug of tea, watching her, before he set a second cup on the corner of the table closest to Mando and placed the last near her knee. The doting gesture left her silently questioning just how much he knew about the unmoving man at her side.

After eating just enough to stifle the beckoning of hunger in her own stomach, she set to work on the child’s, straining the broth from a ladle full of stew into a bowl and letting little hands grasp it securely before returning her attention to her own.

Savvy green eyes fell to the child for a moment, observing as he sipped from his dinner. They rose just long enough to meet hers before shooting Mando a look that was hard to read.

“Another bounty?” The old man asked him with the lift of a thick, white brow. And something passed between them that knotted her own and turned her eyes up to an unchanging sightline, as if the answer would be found there.

Mando merely tipped his helmet and changed the subject.

“We crashed on Hoth. My ship is still there.”

“Hoth?” Kuiil echoed, confused. “Then how did you manage to get back here?”

At the question, she shifted uncomfortably and swallowed her bite of food a bit quicker than she’d intended to. It burned down her throat.

“On someone else’s,” Mando gave evenly.

And with a flash of his eyes, it was easy to tell that Kuiil saw straight through it. “I assume this is more than a sightseeing visit then,” he replied, taking another drink from his cup.

Mando finally moved with that, but only to rest a shoulder against the frame of the sill.

“I lost an engine…”

“I still have the leftover parts,” Kuiil nodded, answering a question before Mando could ask it. “Do you remember how to install them? I’m not so sure I could handle Hoth.” And a sincere concern weighed on the man’s face, letting her know she had been right to inquire about their kinship – because that’s what it was for at least one of them, though there was no way to tell if the feeling was returned, other than the complete absence of tension in the tight room.

“I do.” Mando nodded.

With the confirmation, Kuiil moved to set his drink down, pulling a bowl from the stack to fill it nearly to the top with stew.

“There’s a room in the back,” he held it out toward Mando with uncompromising eyes. “I’ll show you to the workshop after supper.”

Mando’s head inclined the slightest bit at the mandatory offering, fingers shifting over his arms for a moment before he finally moved from the wall with a low sound of defeat.

It solidified her theory and nearly made her grin around her spoon.

* * *

Kuiil’s workbench was organized almost identically to how it was on his first visit. Pliers and calipers of all kinds were aligned on their hangers against the back wall. A large soldering iron rested at the left end of the long, wood table, along with some wind-blade scraps that it seemed he’d been tending to before they arrived.

Mando waited patiently, watching the child play outside just beyond the open door of the shed. He chased the lightning bugs that hovered anywhere close enough, their sparks just beginning to flicker and glow like flecks of gold in the air against the soft twilight.

Kuiil had made it his duty to show Eira to her quarters after dinner so that she could settle in. It was the only small room at the back. The one where he’d taken his meal. Clearly the Ugnaught’s own.

And the food still warmed his belly and quelled the near constant sense of restlessness that had claimed the space behind his eyes, but only just enough to keep him still where he stood.

The show of hospitality almost ached. They couldn’t stay long. It wouldn’t be safe for anyone involved.

The sun sat just below the mountaintops when Kuiil finally made his way into the shed. He wore his work cap now, holding his welding goggles in his hand. He stopped to clean them with a worn rag while watching the child as the little thing grumbled in frustration at the fleeing bugs that held no interest in his game of chase.

“He’s faster,” Kuiil remarked, before appraising the new armor Mando had acquired since their first meeting. Eyes stopped at his helmet. “I take it the payout was not worth the price?”

The man meant no harm, he knew, but the question seemed to press against the beskar over his sternum and held his breath there. Had it been anyone else, he wouldn’t have answered.

“They were Imperial,” was all he said, knowing not much else would be needed, and the thought of nearly overlooking that fact still curled regret like fire in his veins.

Kuiil only nodded as if he’d already concluded as much, though the confirmation darkened his eyes before they returned to the kid. “His abilities then. The road you have chosen is going to be rough.” The Ugnaught shot a quizzical look back up toward his sightline. “But I think you’ve discovered that already.”

It loosened that same pit that threatened his chest and he almost breathed a snort. There was no way he could know how right he was.

“And the woman?” Kuiil asked then, as if reading the turn of his thoughts.

Mando straightened some. He had been expecting the question since he’d led her into his home, but still he searched for the most logical answer to give.

He had slept well the night before, her body soft against his side. So had she. It was a novelty that he didn’t have the lifestyle or care to experience very often – though after years of wading through the scourge and savagery the galaxy offered up to him in heaping quantities, it was a turbulent thing to know he could still provide something besides the ability to break and bruise. Though it always came back to that, it seemed.

“I could use your help there, too,” he said, the words pale as they left him. He shifted on his feet, not exactly liking the idea of asking for anything more than what was already being provided. Well more than deserved. “If it’s still on the table.” 

Kuiil merely hobbled the few steps over to his side, crossed his arms, and waited silently for him to continue.

“Are you familiar with tracking chips?”

At the question, the Ugnaught’s mouth turned sharp and the usually leveled man very nearly snarled.

“I know of them,” he gave, voice forged in stone and mortar. “During a stint of my servitude in the mines, I encountered a few others who had tried to earn their freedom with the quickness of their feet.” He paused for a moment and the revulsion in his tone claimed his eyes. “It was never quite fast enough. When they were returned, they were never the same.” 

Mando tilted his head in question, but Kuiil dropped his gaze and went silent. And though he would not press, he was not left unaffected. He glanced up to check on the child, who still busied himself with the flies, using the silence to settle the crawling sensation along his own spine.

“She has one in the back of her neck,” Mando finally said low, earning hardened eyes again.

“Is she indentured?”

“No,” his mod hissed the word. “She doesn’t remember insertion. She must have been a child.” 

Kuiil's expression soured somehow further. “I am confused. Why is she tracked if she is not contracted?”

Mando set his teeth and went silent. The answer to the question all of a sudden felt too heavy to share. A burden he now bore with her but was slow to cast freely upon others – even those he trusted. It was not his place.

“ _I_ was contracted,” he gave harsh instead, a blinding irritation rising heavy to curl in his throat. “It’s how I found her,” he released a heavy breath and shook his head as he tried to gather it. “It’s not right Kuiil. She doesn’t deserve it.”

The old man’s eyes thinned on him and his struggle, and under the silent scrutiny, it felt as if his helmet had all but vanished from over his face.

“Then it must be removed,” Kuiil responded in a way that had him recalling the man’s first irrefutable offer of aide – while the ground still bruised against his flank where the blurrg had knocked him to it with such a force that he hadn’t been sure he’d heard him right.

Now, there was no questioning his words, but another came to mind.

“Do you have anything for the pain?” He asked.

Kuiil sent him another look. Too mindful to be comforting.

“I do,” he nodded. “From the looks of it, she has suffered quite enough already.”

Mando’s eyes slid closed beneath his helmet. He couldn’t stop them. Something burned in him now, raw and foul and gnashing. He drew a breath to try and smother it.

“The parts can wait,” he said, “It has to be destroyed. She won’t be free until it is.”

The words were chosen carefully, though they still came rough from his helmet. He watched as they tensed Kuiil’s entire stance.

“Not here. Its final coordinates will still show. It has to be relocated first.”

“I’ll toss it in hyperspace then,” Mando waved a frustrated gesture in the general direction of the ship where it rested in the desert. “Somewhere beyond the outer rim where anyone tracking it will get blown from the sky.”

“You mean where _you_ will get blown from the sky.” Kuiil gave steady, holding both hands up before him as if to calm the brewing storm. One hovered inches from his arm. “Think clearly about this, Mando.”

He couldn’t. It was one of the times he wished he could remove his helmet, the desire to press his fingers deep against the irritation that torched his eyes. He fisted his hands at his sides instead. He was losing control and he didn’t know why. Wanted to knock every bit of the metal off the workbench beside him, just so the surroundings could be somewhat proportionate to what he felt. But he wouldn’t. Not here. So he sat and seethed and forced himself still, letting his attention return to the child.

“It comes out first,” Kuiil gave beside him with a warm command to his tone that didn't strike but still forbade questioning. “Then the two of you can discuss what to do with it.”

* * *

She wasn’t sure about the blurrgs.

They reminded her a bit of the dewbacks she'd come across during a brief stop through Mos Eisley in search of export runners at her father’s order – but more compact and menacing with their jagged bared teeth and curled claws.

“Do they bite?”

She watched with slight apprehension as Kuiil fed one of the smaller sows by hand through the wooden barriers of the enclosure.

“Only when provoked,” he said, and she watched as the creature tilted its head and took the food from him with a docile shift of its jaw. “Or hungry,” he added, looking up at her with a shining mirth to his eyes. “But they are well fed here.”

His pride brought a wistful turn to her own lips and she carefully pressed the back of her hand through the bars, letting the young blurrg sniff at her skin as she would the adolescent eopies in the Braad markets on Bakura, bred as nothing more than beasts of burden and treated the same by most who would procure them. “So were we.” She said in earnest, glancing over at the older man who had paused from his task to observe her effort. Not only had he treated them to a delicious meal, but now her dirty shawl hung in the closet of the man's room, where he'd nearly had to demand she take the only small bed his home bore. She had tried to deny him, but failed. “Thank you.”

He dipped his head toward her.

“It is my pleasure. Mando is the reason we are able to enjoy this land in peace. Any guest of his is one of mine.”

The claims weighed on her for a moment, her mind a bit skeptical of every aspect of their validity, though she did not distrust the man himself. She wasn't quite certain that a once-bounty could be considered a guest by any means. And Mando had mentioned receiving the Ugnaught’s aide, but never providing his own - And just a day ago, she would have sworn that wherever the bounty hunter went, peace surely did not follow.

“How do you know him?” She asked the question that had prodded at her curiosity from the moment they'd touched down, with a tilt of her chin.

Kuiil turned to tend to a few of the other, larger blurrgs that had wandered toward the gate at the smell of their meal, and with the young sow’s mild reaction to her own advances, she knelt to the ground and let her hand rest light against its snout. At the touch, the great beast purred like a languid loth cat. 

“Same as you, I imagine,” he gave almost fondly, and it would have drawn her eyes to question him had she not been entirely enraptured by the unexpected sound. She let her hand soothe lightly over scaled skin and the creature’s eyes slid closed beneath it.

“I doubt that,” she spoke soft, as if to further lull the beast. “He was meant to return me to Bakura.”

From the corner of her eye, she could see Kuiil straighten. 

“I figured as much,” he said as if acknowledging nothing more than the cool, dusk air. “You have your mother’s eyes.” And at that her head whipped toward him as if he’d cursed her name. Her hand fell to rest against the rail. He held her gaping expression with something warm in his own. “I couldn’t place them,” he continued, “not at first, but that look,” he nodded toward her, “is very similar to one she would give the walls of the mines whenever the minerals would catch in the fire light.”

She swallowed the weight of her heart where it had leapt to her throat and struggled to find her voice. “You’ve been to Bakura?”

“Not by choice,” his head shook softly, “but my time there was not all unpleasant. I was commissioned to the mines of Prytis before the truce. It was a harsh period of war for your world, and the mines were to be stripped of their metals for weapons and advantage.” He took a step toward her and let an arm rest on the middle beam of the fence. His eyes grew distant. “When the attacks closed in, families would seek refuge in their depths. After the initial fear wore off, the children would grow bolder and play amongst themselves to pass the time. Sometimes laughs would echo deep to where we worked. Like music.” He looked to her again, her position on her knee making her nearly even in height with the Ugnaught, and she was glad for the ground's stability. “On more than one occasion, one of them lost their way," he continued. "A young girl with eyes of grey and courage to match. She tried to kick me the first time I offered her my guidance.”

A choked breath left her, a shocked laugh, as the tale strummed her heart and creased her eyes.

“She would go on to become a blacksmith,” she gave back gently to the man who had already provided more than she could ever ask for. “Those caves were her home more than anything built by man.”

Kuiil’s brow drew tight. “Were?”

She nodded, swallowing again, and the words all but poured from her lips where they’d been sitting like a stone over her conscious for more years than she could count, haunting her dreams and robbing her breath, even still as she tried to speak.

“She was murdered not long after my birth,” she breathed and Kuiil’s expression fell and withdrew, hurting nearly as much as the declaration. “Most of what I’ve come to know about her is through stories like your own. She tried to help. She would forge weapons for those who couldn’t afford them. Like this,” she drew her own from its sheath, holding it across her palm, and let her eyes blaze bright with the familiar weight of it, as if it were an extension of her hand. “Innocent people who would have no other way to protect themselves. She wasn’t discovered until a few years later, but by then the Imperial’s had sunk their teeth into the soil and spread fear across Bakura like a disease... She was trialed as a traitor,” her voice broke and burned between her teeth. “The last thing I remember of her is being ripped away. And the _fear_.”

A narrow hand came to rest over her shoulder, gentle in intention though rough and calloused with his work. She drew a breath and willed heat to singe away the moisture that prickled at the corners of her eyes. Her hand fisted around her blade and pressed against her knee to hold her weight. She settled over them on the ground. 

“Do not let them take more from you than they already have,” Kuiil said to her after a moment with a light squeeze of his hand. It reached her heart.

“I have no intention to,” she answered, soft but sharp as glass.

“Good.”

And the word came from just behind her, hissed in static in a way that drew both pair of eyes around and up to it. Hers found his sightline and watched as it lowered to sweep across her, from the blade held tight in her hand, back up to her face.

“The kid’s asleep,” Mando said. “If you’re ready.”

She set her jaw and rose to stand. She was.


	11. The Ally Pt. 2

Grainy wood dug into the skin of her palms. She sat facing the back of the worn chair, its height from the ground clearly made for a being half her size, leaving her knees to bend almost awkwardly out to either side.

Kuiil shuffled around somewhere behind her. He had lit the flame in the hearth of the fireplace, warming the room of the night’s chill. It brushed soft against the exposed skin of her back though it did nothing to relax her.

She listened as he rustled, gathering the necessary tools, but kept her eyes trained low near her hands on the aged and splintering arch of chair, deciding she would rather not see any of them at all if it were possible. He had mentioned a topical ointment that would do what it could to mask the pain of the cut itself, but tracking chips were fickle things, elaborately implanted into one’s spinal column and made purposefully difficult to remove. Only then had he met her eyes and promised her it would not be his first attempt.

It stirred a growing relief, one that tried to build low in her chest, somewhere deep beneath the hum of anxiety. The idea that once the chip was removed from her skin she could truly start over without the impending sense of fear and failure that had followed her no matter how far from Bakura she managed to flee.

Now she knew why, and it still burned at the back of her neck like something living. Even moreso when Kuiil stopped somewhere close and settled himself onto the edge of the bed just behind where she sat.

She pulled her hair up into a bun over the top of her head and used the same motion to stretch the muscles along her shoulders and neck to keep them from seizing and flinching at the impending contact.

From the position she sat, she couldn’t see him, not fully, but Mando stood near the entryway to the room at her right flank. He hadn’t moved from behind her since she’d lifted the rear of her blouse over her head, exposing the length of her back. His head had turned, the fire catching just right against his helmet and flashing in the corner of her eye.

She didn’t know what to think of him watching the procedure. Not that it truly bothered her. It was because of him that it was getting removed. But just the idea of his eyes on her bared back had her sitting the slightest bit straighter.

“I am going to have to shave it over,” Kuiil’s warm voice came from behind her. “Would you prefer I numb it first?”

She took a breath, a moment to consider, and nodded. “Yes. It is sensitive to the touch.” She couldn’t imagine a razor being much softer, and if she didn’t have to feel it, she didn’t want to.

Tools clinked and shuffled behind her as Kuiil prepped the numbing salve. Its’ surgical smell stung her nose.

A cool, tingling sensation rose along her skin where it was applied to the nape of her neck. He carefully dabbed the ointment in a tight circle around the chip, before placing the pressure of his finger over the peak directly, pressing just hard enough to part through the thin hair there and reach her skin.

It was irritating at most under his mindful ministrations. Nothing like when she would accidentally bump it in slumber or catch a fingernail against it when it itched.

By the time the edge of a blade met her skin, she could only feel the press of it more than any pain. He slid it in brief upward movements to shave the short strands of hair away and she fought back a shiver as they fell, tickling down her back. It bothered her more than it should have. Silly in the grand scheme of things, losing a bit of hair to be free of much more. But she had always been fond of her long locks and the thought of forfeiting even a few strands added to the growing list of choices taken from her. It set her teeth as they fell from her scalp.

The scraping sound of the razor faded and was replaced again by the clang of metal tools.

“Are you ready?” Kuiil asked, calm and sure, a steadying hand pressing against the base of the back of her neck.

She answered with a short nod and drew a breath.

“Lean your head down.”

She did, pressing her forehead to the brim of the chair back.

Pressure. Hot and searing. She could feel every centimeter of the blades crawling descent, coming to rest just above the top of her spine. Her hands slid down the arch of the chair, locking in a better hold. Her knuckles went white.

Kuiil paused.

“Steady,” he instructed, pressing his hand more firmly against her back. A second later and the burning was dulled again with another generous application of salve, the excess trailing down her shoulder blade. “How is that?”

“Better,” she managed, though her throat was locked and rigid. The wood grew slick against her brow.

“Good. I can see it,” Kuiil spoke low, his hand shifting to her shoulder when he turned to find Mando. “It is intricate. She has to be still.”

The words hung heavy in the warm air, the unspoken request taking nearly as long to make sense in her mind. She wasn’t sure what Kuiil expected and for a while the only sound in the room was the soft crackling of fire, proving she was not alone.

The floor creaked. 

The even tinging sound of metal marked his steps as Mando moved into view, passing her. He leaned over to drag a metal chest from the foot of the bed, across the floor to the ground just in front of her. It was much shorter than her own seat, leaving her reflection to stare back at her in his visor when he lowered himself onto it and matched her height. A heartbeat passed before she noticed a distorted Kuiil behind her, a tool in his hand that looked like sharpened pliers. She forced her gaze back down to the cowl at Mando’s neck instead.

“I’ve managed worse,” she said, sounding more defensive than she meant to. It wasn’t anger that darkened the words but an unfounded apprehension. The closeness of the man before her paired with the idea that he was to keep her from moving.

“Have you?” Mando asked. It was genuine.

It gave her pause for a moment before she rested her head back down against the wooden arch. She had never been a particularly good liar.

“Look at me,” he said then, moving a hand to grab a roll of gauze from somewhere at the back of his belt. When she did, he wrapped it around the sharp edge of the chair where her head had rested. “The DNA sensor coils against your spine.” And though there was no sharpness behind it, it was as clear a warning as any.

She pressed her head back down against the much more forgiving surface and braced herself.

“Okay,” Kuiil gave soft.

It was as if lightening had struck the back of her neck, white searing pain trailing from the tip of her spine, straight down the backs of both of her arms, burning each of the tips of her fingers. She swore they would char the wood black beneath her grip. Sound built in her throat that her own body wouldn’t allow her to release, her lungs emptying of their contents with a sharp gust. Her eyes slid shut and stung. Her jaw locked. She wanted to thrash, to kick, to push her boots into the floor and move herself forward, away.

Leather brushed against the top of her thumb as Mando gripped the chair just above her own hold, keeping it still. It whined against the sudden opposing force.

Then she heard it, the sound of metal scraping against bone. It turned her stomach and she had to force a swallow to keep from losing her dinner. She cursed instead, and it slid through her teeth as a sob more than anything brazen.

It was then that a large hand pressed down against the back of her head. Long finger splayed across her hair. It was a steadying pressure, just enough to keep her head planted. The gauze grew moist with sweat against her skin. It trailed down her temples.

It took only minutes but felt like a lifetime. A soft click echoed through her skull and the pressure against her spine finally released, like a burst of rain over an angry wildfire.

Her entire frame went slack, her whole upper body supported by her head being carefully held in place. 

She went numb; to the stitches being threaded through skin. The icy sting of bacta. To the words of success Kuiil shared over her to Mando, who slowly rose to assess the claim for himself. To everything, apart from the soothing circles his thumb pressed against her scalp.

* * *

  
She dreamt of Bakura. The good parts. Rolling green terrain that met the hips of crystalline mountains, their highest peaks hidden in soft grey mist. Of watching the sun set behind them, its’ last rays reflecting around their silhouette, setting the whole skyline ablaze in pink and orange.

There was nothing like it. Home.

She woke slow. Again. Knowing exactly where the dream ended and her own consciousness began; doing everything she could to hold onto it for those few seconds longer. Because when she gave in, the pain returned. It was nothing unbearable so long as she stayed still. She had learned that upon waking the first few times much earlier in the night, attempting to adjust in her sleep before realizing how terrible of an idea it was. Since then, she resolved to staying as still as she could on her belly, her bare feet hanging over the end of the short bed. She couldn’t remember taking off her boots, but she spotted them sitting in uniform alignment on the floor, their heels against the base of the mattress. It was answer enough.

The fire in the hearth still burned healthy and bright though she was alone in the room.

And for a while, she was glad for it, the solitude. A moment to breathe and process the last turbulent few days. The chairs remained scattered about and the room still held the lingering smell of disinfectant, but all signs of surgery had been cleared.

She pressed her cheek more firmly into the soft sheets and tried to settle back in. She watched the flames curl. They did nothing to sooth.

Instead, she rose gingerly up off the bed standing still for a moment until the swimming in her eyes settled, and made her way to the small refresher in the back corner of the room. There were fresh towels folded on the edge of the basin and the sight rose a small smile to her lips. It had been a very long time since she was doted on in such a way and she would have to remember to thank Kuiil a second time. 

Her reflection stared back at her in the small mirror. Her eyes were hollower than she could recall but her wounds were healing well. The line across her brow had lightened to nothing more than a pink crescent on her skin. The slit on her lip was still an angry red, but it had closed and the soreness was now of little consequence.

Grime covered almost every other inch of the rest of her face. She twisted the faucet on, spilling just enough water over one of the wash rags to soak it completely without wasting. Water already seemed scarce in such a place, and she would do whatever possible to repay her hosts many favors, not that she ever truly could.

The quick once over made her wish for a long shower, hot and soothing against her muscles, but this would have to do. Not here, and especially not with fresh stitches. So she settled for scrubbing what dirt she could from her face and neck with careful movements before wringing out the rag and hanging it over the edge to dry. She met her eyes in the mirror again and saw the beginnings of someone recognizable.

She thought of Mando then. Wondered if he had stood in front of same mirror the day before. Wondered what he saw staring back. It brought back the sensation of his hand in her hair. The tender realization that he touched it whenever the occasion presented itself. And though she’d never cared too much about her appearance, something about the bun wrapped tight atop her head bothered her then. She rose an arm to pull the tie free, pressing her lips tight against the discomfort, and instead twisted her locks into a quick braid over her shoulder with practiced fingers to keep them off her neck. Once satisfied, she made her way back out into the bedroom.

From where she stood, she could see through the small door into the living space.

Kuiil slept on the couch, covered in a thin blanket. It rose and fell with his soft snores. The child slept beside him in a craft basket, curled tight in new white linens.

Mindful to keep her steps soft, she made her way to the mouth of the threshold to search the rest of the room for his shadow. Mando was nowhere to be found.

It set her in motion. She grabbed her blanket up from the bed, easing it around her shoulders before she crept past the sleeping pair and through the curtain that served as the hut’s front door. It flapped softly behind her in the much cooler desert wind. Her bare feet dipped into the sun baked sand, still warm to the touch, and for a moment she stilled and wiggled her toes to settle them deeper, turning her gaze to the sky.

Another beautiful view. The only light she could see for miles around was the faint firelight that filtered from the windows of Kuiil’s home, leaving the stars above to shine bright and unhindered, their beauty on full display. 

She used their light to guide her way to the nearest building, a small shed a few feet from the stables where she could just make out the blurrg rumbling in their sleep though they still stood on their feet.

The shed door was closed, and she very nearly pushed it open without hesitation before it crossed her mind to knock. She did so lightly, two quick rasps of her knuckles before she went still and waited.

There was no answer. She let a few more seconds pass just to be sure before she slid the door open just enough to see in.

It was a storage shed. An ode to blurrg care. There were saddles and leading straps hanging against the walls. Tools of the trade scattered about, pitchforks and shovels and devices she’d never seen before. The rear of the space was claimed entirely by a mound of fresh hay, the scent of it sweetening the air.

Mando lounged near where it sloped low against the ground, his visor barely rising to follow her as she entered and neared, the only indication that he was awake. A lantern burned on the ground near his boots providing just enough light to see.

She stopped near it and pulled her blanket closed around her.

“It’s too cold to be sleeping in a barn,” her voice was still raspy with sleep and raw from the night’s events.

He merely watched her for a moment.

“I’m fine,” he returned evenly. “Go back inside.”

She ignored the request and took another look around the space instead. The metal walls that surrounded them were rusted and aged by years of windstorms and sandblast. The breeze whistled every so often when it caught a hole in the roof just right.

“And if the building comes toppling down?”

His helmet tilted. A tired sound passed his modulator.

“Your blue blood is showing.”

Her eyes widened a fraction at the quiet retort, not fully expecting its weight.

She sent a firm look to his sightline. “I bleed red,” her hand made a passing gesture toward her lip. “Same as you I’d imagine.”

There was no way to know the look the sentiment earned her but Mando’s shoulders fell the slightest bit. He was quiet for a long moment. “Go back to sleep,” he finally urged again, low and almost – weary.

She took a breath and considered both him and her answer. He was too tired to fight too.

“I can’t,” she admitted. “I keep waking up.” And with a sigh of defeat, she turned and settled herself over the hay a few feet to Mando’s right, crossing one leg beneath the other and leaning her elbow against a raised knee to keep any pressure off her neck and back.

She could feel him watching though he said nothing.

She plucked a strand of hay from the pile beside her and tried to focus on it, twirling it idly between her finger and thumb. But even just that slight movement sent a soreness up her arm that twinged and burned.

For a long while the night was silent apart from the whispering of wind.

It crept through the walls and chilled the air around them and all of a sudden it was as if they were back on Hoth, with nothing but the snow and the fire, and what seemed like never ending night. It was a strange realization, to miss such a thing, the simplicity of it, though their situation could not have been any more complicated at the time.

Now she was free to the fullest extent of the word. Free to go wherever she wanted. To roam in the snow, or lie on sandy shores, or lose herself in a tangle of woods. But at that moment she found she didn’t want to move. It drew her eyes back to him, to discover that he had not looked away since she’d sat down.

She watched the way the small licks of flame danced over his chest plate and pauldron, only sharpening the sense of de ja vu. It sparked something alive in her chest and warmed her core and before she knew it her lips were moving.

“Can I ask you something?”

Mando was silent a moment longer.

“Sure.” It was nearly as hesitant as she felt.

“On the way here, you um... you held me,” and she hated the smallness of her voice at that moment. She took another breath to steady it, though it only resulted in a whisper. “Why?”

He looked away, his visor facing forward toward the cracked door of the shed. Her heart fell with the instant indication that she had said something wrong. He moved, shifting to place his palm to the ground to push himself up.

She wasn’t sure what came over her. She knew it was a mistake, but before she could tell her protesting muscles no, she leaned over to reach for his wrist.

With a flash of light against metal, in a single motion, her own wrist was caught in an unyielding grip before she had even managed to touch him. It left her unbalanced, her back pressing flat against the hay. It burned against the bandaging over neck but she set her teeth and let the pain shine bright in her eyes, hoping the challenge would hold him still more than her temporarily lapsed strength.

He hovered over her, frozen, his hold on her wrist loosening slightly where he pressed it against the ground near her side. “Why would you do that?” He asked, truly bewildered, a measured control to his voice that wore dangerously thin. 

And she had known better, but she also trusted that his nature would outweigh his instincts.

“Because you did not answer me,” she returned soft.

He shook his head, a choked sound hissing from his helmet, near enough to her that there was no way to miss the revulsion in it.

“I have none of the answers you’re looking for. Nothing.”

His mod cracked over the last of it. He believed every word he spoke. It broke her heart.

“Is that truly how you feel?” She prodded carefully, her head turning against the hay. “That you have nothing to offer?” When he didn’t answer, she did for him. “Because it’s not true.”

He was a statue of a man, all but for his chest which broadened and rose with heavy breaths, inches over her own.

“Nothing but pain,” he finally hissed. “You know that. You’ve seen it.”

And it was right then that she realized every ounce of his ire was pointed directly at himself again, a pin that had been pulled from a grenade long ago; the same one she had rattled on the trip there, and the one that she was now determined to help him set free from his grip. Another favor to be returned.

“When warranted, yes. I have,” she glared up at him. “But you are not some monster of old, Mando. I’ve learned that too.” With the claim, his hand flexed around the sinew of her wrist and it ached in a way that kept her grounded and sure. She was on the right path. “I am free because of you,” she spoke allowed for the first, swallowing against the stone that threatened low in her throat each time the thought returned to the forefront of her mind. “I could go anywhere in the galaxy without risk of being found. Even by you,” she nodded up at him, before sobering and staring straight into his sightline where she liked to imagine his eyes were. “But I am content right where I am.”

And it was as if the claim caused him to realize _exactly_ where she was at that moment.

The pressure of his hand slowly lifted from her wrist. He placed his palm against the ground beside her instead to support himself. His entire demeanor changed before her eyes, wavered, withdrew. 

“Faceless beasts bound by their oaths…” the ghosted words from a different time fell heavy from him and sunk deep into her chest like a blade. It was the second time they were used against her now and she regretted speaking them with every fiber of her being. She hated the claim. Hated that he held onto it so tightly. More so than any of the truths she had come to know since then and offered freely to him whenever necessary.

“That’s not fair,” she whispered back, reaching up tenderly, slowly, with her newly freed hand to trace the sharp curve of his helmet where his cheek would be, the same line her eyes had trailed over and over again. To her mild surprise, he did not stop her. “Things were… different then,” she faltered, mirth touching her eyes at the understatement of the century. “Faceless sure, but not beasts,” she decided. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

His helmet tilted a fraction. A heartbeat of silence passed.

“What makes you so sure?” He asked, voice rasped by something new and heavy that she’d never heard before.

It was warm and heady and she grinned at the way the question so easily found her heart. There were so many answers she could give him, but she went with the one that struck first. The one that had made up her mind for her.

“I broke,” she said matter of factly, letting her hand drift down from his visor to press flat against his chest plate. “For a moment I let the world get the best of me. And you held me.” 

She drew quiet.

His helmet fell in the barest of motions, shoulders going slack as every ounce of resistance left them. His breath nearly shuddered from his helmet.

She was unwavering in her newfound belief. She had never felt stronger.

He was still for another moment. Then he moved, rose to a knee and turned away from her just long enough to cut off the lanterns fuel, shrouding the space around them in total darkness.

She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it wasn’t this and without her vision, her heart rate began to rise. Something compressed released too near for comfort with a quick hiss of air and she reached out blindly in reaction for some sign of Mando or what he was doing. Her hand found nothing, but shortly after, the mound of hay at her side dipped under what could only be his weight as he reclaimed his original position at her side. She could feel him recline beside her, his own head coming to rest somewhere just beside hers.

“Don’t move,” he said, plead, and it felt as if she had been shocked where she lay. His voice was un-modded; rich and close and _real_. A gloved hand reached for her wrist again. He lifted it from where it curled against her ribs. She eased herself onto her side with his gentle coaxing to face him but didn’t dare do much else. Their hands faltered in the air only a moment before he pressed her fingers light against his cheek. The same spot they had traced along his helmet, only this time there was soft skin and stubble in the place of impenetrable armor. Warmth instead of steel.

For a moment she was awe stricken. Honored. Confused. Unable to fully grasp any solid feeling as they flooded her senses and brought moisture to her eyes. She blinked it away, gathering up the nerve to carefully run a fingernail against the grain of his facial hair, stopping where the swell of his cheek met a firm jawline. He was slow to release her hand, his own hesitating just over hers before he let it fall completely and, though cautiously, she took it as permission.

She kept her movements small, letting her fingertips map the strong line of his jaw, the way it curved down into his chin. His beard was thicker there. She lifted her hand away just long enough to find his brow. It was drawn, as if in pain. She slid the pad of her thumb across them, soothing the tension there, the exploring touch turning into gentle caresses. When she reached the bridge of his nose, she let her fingers test the curve. They parted over the crest of his nose and she let them linger for a heartbeat, another, before pressing the pads of her first two finger against his lips. She could feel the swell of his throat as he swallowed under the gentle ministration. His lips parted and a warm exhale trembled around her fingers. It stilled her.

“Would you like me to stop?”

“No.” It came quick from him, lips pressing flush against her skin, and her eyes slid closed with the affirmation; encompassed entirely by the way he shuddered at her touch. A discovery that awoke something dark and simmering low in her belly.

She let her fingers glide to the corner of his mouth, placing a bit of pressure there for a moment before searching for the edge of his hairline just beneath his ear. She was surprised by its length, thick locks of hair falling easily between her finger as she slid them higher. His head bowed toward her. His forehead brushed against hers. 

She let her nails trail in light paths back down his scalp to the nape of his neck. He shivered. She did it again, learning him, memorizing his every reaction as well as she could in the dark. They made her wonder how often he allowed himself to be touched like this. If he had ever known anything softer.

It was as if the universe answered her when her nails slipped low to the skin at the rear of his neck, catching on a raised rough patch of skin. A scar, she realized a second later. It cut in a line across his skin, just beneath where his helmet would sit. His shoulders flexed when she traced over it with a feather light touch.

Her forehead tilted against his, a silent query.

“Blaster fire,” he breathed, “Just a graze.”

His real voice ensnared her again, drew her eyes open. His face was _right_ there, but she could only see black.

“Are there more?” She asked, wanting to keep him engaged. To keep him talking.

A moment later, she was answered by the quiet tear of velcro. When his hand rose to lead hers down, away from his neck, she was met by warm skin. Her breath caught. Callouses brushed over her knuckles. He rolled his palm beneath hers, bringing her fingers to skim against his wrist. This one was jagged, a chevron shaped dip in his skin just beside where his pulse beat strong and steady.

“Blade,” he said. “Training.”

She fought to remember to breathe.

He pulled his head back an inch, guiding her hand to his face again, up to a spot near the corner of his eye, closer than she dared to venture unguided in the dark for fear of blinding him. A thin curve marred the soft skin there.

“Scout sniper.”

An unwarranted smile teased at her lips. She remembered being told of this one, long before she ever imagined she would care. “It splintered your sight and -”

“Hurt like hell. Yes.” He nodded his head back against hers, a short breathy sound passing his lips.

She let her fingers sooth over the hollow beneath his eye, taking a moment to gather herself.

“What color are your eyes?” She asked him then, trying to piece together the picture her mind had attempted to create long ago. He didn’t answer her, but a part of her had already expected he wouldn’t. “I like to imagine they are brown. Or green.”

She felt him blink.

“You imagine?”

It drew a quiet laugh from her. “Don’t be so surprised. Most beings you cross paths with do, I’m sure.”

“Most try to kill me,” he returned almost absently, his hand leaving hers again. Bare fingers brushed over the shell of her ear before he skimmed them down the length of her braided hair. 

She hummed a sound of acceptance, of victory, lowering her hand from his face to rest it over the back of his. “Well there is no threat to you here.”

He sighed a tired sound.

"Sure."

It was all he gave her in return, but his actions had already betrayed his belief. She basked in the warmth of it, of him, the pain and chill of the night forgotten, no longer able to reach her skin.

They stayed like that a long time, she with eyes closed, listening to the soft even sounds of his breathing and he mapping out the plains of her face with his fingers as if it were the first time he could truly see it.


	12. Balance

Mando awoke with a start.

Not due to dream or any of the usual ailments, but because something tickled against his cheek. His _bared_ cheek, still cradled by straws of hay where he’d fallen asleep in their embrace.

He rose quick to sit, a hand subconsciously reaching out to rest over his helmet beside him as the night’s events crept to the forefront his conscious mind. A sudden swelling dread grew low in his chest. He took in the space with sleep drawn eyes, forcing them to adjust to the golden morning light that trailed in through the cracks of the shed’s structure overhead. It was just bright enough to confirm he was alone.

He exhaled his relief, settling more comfortably over the ground. His eyes slid closed again and he let his head fall forward under its own weight. It was a foolish mistake, leaving himself exposed in such a way, though he could not find it within himself to regret the actions that led up to it. And it was only then that he noticed the blanket draped over him, bunched in his lap where it had fallen when he sat up. It stretched low to cover his legs nearly to his boots. The same one Eira had draped over her shoulders when she’d found him there the night before.

The heat that flushed through him then was not at all caused by the covering.

She was incomprehensible.

She was in pain. He had seen so clearly enough in her earliest attempts at sleep before he’d resigned himself to the privacy of the barn. He had to, using the cool night air to calm his thoughts and clear his eyes of the wrath that burned behind them at the sight of another scar carved into her skin by the long and reaching extension of her own father’s hand.

And for a while, in the deepest shadows of the night, the growing hate that ground in his blood felt almost hypocritical. It was not as if his own hands were clean.

He looked at them then where they rested in his lap, one gloved, the other still freed. He rolled the latter over to look at his wrist, weighing the idea that she knew a few of his own scars now, too. An attempt to console and _relate_ , and it was only fair considering how intimately he knew hers, differently obtained but permanent all the same.

And it had helped, the poisonous feeling trying to subside as she’d pried it away from him with her words and searching touches. Promises that she so clearly believed, though their validity was as distant to him as the stars above.

He slid his glove back on.

But even so, with the rising sun, he found there was a new lightness beneath his armor. A quieting of his mind. He had slept deep, the last of its clutches still thinning his eyes against the new day's light. He knew he should move. Knew that the longer he sat there, the longer her chip still pinged their location to whoever was unlucky enough to be tracking it. But at that moment, he let himself sit in the silence of the still morning air.

Even with the harsh desert conditions, it was easy to see why the Ugnaught called the planet home. Desolation could be a gift just as equally as a punishment and there was an odd sense of peace about the place now. A healing sort of tranquility that he knew they all needed. And anyone unfortunate enough to disturb the peace, _their_ peace, would be dealt with accordingly. A decision that had been already made for him when he’d found the child on the very same world months ago, but now reinforced by a feeling new and novel that he would protect just the same.

As if the kid could hear his thoughts, the soft skids of tiny footsteps dragging across the sand came from outside. He slid his helmet on in reaction, just in time, before the little thing pressed himself through the crack in the sliding door, chirping his excitement when big brown eyes spotted him. A reaction he knew he would never get used to.

Without hesitation, he waddled quick across the space between them and climbed up into his lap. A little hand reached up toward his visor, holding out a piece of puffer pig bacon that had to have come from his own breakfast. 

“Thanks kid,” he said, inclining his helmet back an inch before it could be smeared with grease. He carefully took it from him with his own gloved hand instead.

The child stilled and waited.

The Mandalorian watched russet eyes round in anticipation and weighed his few options.

With a sigh, he slipped the small piece of meat up under his visor. It was a little cold, but still hearty.

The kid babbled happily at his mild show of approval.

* * *

The day passed slow.

Kuiil had served them breakfast before stepping out, the little one keeping close behind him on his heels. She could just make out Kuiil turning to encourage him along, surely to lead him to Mando before they disappeared from view out the front door of the hut.

He had fallen asleep at her side the night before, and she’d known the exact moment, his hand falling to rest over the inside of her elbow where it had supported her head against the hay.

His helmet lay somewhere behind him, and she would not take more than he willingly gave; already much more than she ever anticipated. So she had left the shed and his side somewhere in the darkest park of night without looking back. He had not entered the hut since, but every once in a while she could hear him outside helping Kuiil weld the parts for his ship.

Rest was forgotten as she tried to keep busy, distracting herself both from the ache in her spine and the reoccurring warmth that bred and waned every so often in the hollow of her chest as if it couldn’t find a particular spot to settle in. Her lips pressed to a firm line each time the feelings threatened to steal her features; those of his skin, his true voice... of simply _knowing_ him.

She tidied up a bit, deciding to do what she could to assist with basic chores to pass the time. She rounded up their meal trays from breakfast, scrubbing them clean in the sonic sink and nesting them back in their cabinets. After, she made her way to Kuiil’s room, foregoing making the bed she knew she would soon be returning to, to instead carefully slide the disarrayed furniture back to their original positions.

Just the small effort was enough to tire her out, so she settled with reading after that, knotting the curtain over the main window in the living room so that the sunlight painted the small space golden, specks of dust catching the afternoon sun and dancing in the air.

She claimed the lounge opposite it, setting a stack of books close at her side. Kuiil’s shelves held tomes of all different topics from welding and metal working to languages, and histories and topographical mappings of worlds, new and old.

She went with one of the latter, her fingers caressing along the edge of the pages as she absorbed their words. When she got to the planet Alderaan on one of the first few pages it brought a sudden dryness to her throat, the swirling greens and blues of the once very living world too similar to her own. She had learned of its destruction years ago, mere days after it happened, but the disquieting memory rattled her just the same. It had brought her father a renewed volume of trade deals from both those that would use the materials for power and the desperate alike, and he had called the demolition a great victory.

But all she could remember was struggling to digest the the incomprehensible loss. The senseless, sudden, callous silencing of voices young and old. The mere idea of a power so great that an entire civilization, once vibrant and thriving, was just _gone_ , just like that.

The book grew heavy in her lap. She read the last known population, the number large enough to make her head swim, and fought the immediate urge to force the bound brittle leather closed.

The front curtain rustling drew her attention from it.

Kuiil entered alone. He eyed the space for a moment, following a trail of sunlight from the window until his gaze fell to her.

“How are you feeling?” He asked her, shuffling to stand near her side.

She curved her lips into a forced assuring smile.

“A little better,” she replied, and it wasn’t an outright lie, though it felt like one.

“Good,” Kuiil returned, “Care if I check my work?”

She answered by sliding away from the rear of the couch and angling her back toward him. 

He carefully moved the neck of her tunic down just beneath the bandaging, inspecting them.

“It will take a moment,” he said, moving to grab his medical kit down from a shelf along the wall nearby. “These have to be changed.”

She clutched the book in her fingers, focusing on her breaths as he carefully peeled the stained gauze from her skin.

“It is healing well,” he promised. “The bacta is working.”

“That’s good,” she replied, but even she could hear the tightness in the words though Kuiil did all in his power not the disturb the incision more than he absolutely needed too. He cleaned it with something that stung.

“Were you searching for something?” He asked her at the same time, sending a small nod over her shoulder to the book she still gripped too tightly.

“Just a distraction really,” she said, loosening her hold. “Not that it helped very much.”

Kuiil hummed a sound of understanding.

“What happened that day and the great many that followed is not a pleasant memory for anyone,” he spoke as mindfully as he worked, “but they should never be forgotten.”

She took a moment to consider the claim, remembering his mentioning of the mines and wars and commissions. He had been robbed of no other choice but to aid the Imperial effort. She knew such pain.

“Do you ever wish you could?” She asked him then, tone more telling than she cared for it to be.

He carefully taped down the edges of fresh gauze against the back of her neck.

“At times,” he admitted, “but it would be doing those who gave their lives for the cause a great disservice.” He tapped her lightly on the shoulder, signaling the completion of his task and she settled back against the cushions to face him. He eased himself down to sit on the far side of the lounge, resting his hands over his knees.

“It can be hard to see through the darkness in times tragedy, such as the one before you,” he gestured to the open book. “But wherever it lingers, light will surely follow. In one way or another.” Something wry touched his eyes when they met hers. “Past tribulations are not something to run from, but to learn from.”

And his look turned too knowing. Too warm. It thinned her eyes.

“What did Mando tell you?”

A humorless chuckle left him at the mild accusation.

“Nothing more than the condition of his ship,” he promised with a short bow of his head. “But I have been around a long time, Eira. I have watched all varieties of empires rise and fall. Heard the tales of great world leaders and their promises of peace and hope,” he paused, meeting her eyes. “And of ones like Ghal.”

A huff of air left her at the sentiment. Her gaze fell. She had already had an idea where he was going, his intimate familiarity with Bakura still an odd thing that was equal parts unsettling and soothing. No matter how far away she managed to get, it always seemed to find her.

“Though,” he continued, gently drawing her from the reverie, “In all matters of significance, there is always a single constant. Balance.” And the word was all but a vow.

He moved the short stack of books from the couch between them, setting them on the table, before leaning over to turn the pages of the one she held to one near the back. The stunning red landscape of a planet named Vardos stared back at her. She was familiar of its location in the Jinata system, but not much else.

“Vardos,” Kuiil continued, “like Alderaan, was one of many worlds the Empire intended to destroy. Simply to show that they could.”

Intrigued eyes met his.

“What stopped them?” 

“The Empire,” he nodded, watching the confusion settle on her features. He rested his hands back over his knees. “They meant to release great storms by satellite to destroy the planet’s climate, leaving all who resided there to perish. It did not sit right with a small faction of Imperial soldiers who had once called the world home, themselves… so they took it into their own hands by turning against their orders, destroying the satellites and saving millions.” He paused, meeting her gaze again. “It is in times of great despair that people are called on to find out who they really are... Whether they want to or not.”

He eyed her a moment longer before he rose, moving to pack away the remaining medical supplies and return the box to the shelf.

She held her tongue. She would not call him a liar, not outright, but his claims sat off the edge of belief like something unseen and ungraspable. Sure, there were parts of her home that were beautiful, that made her ache for something gone, but all that was good and light had been extinguished, _murdered_ , long before she could solidly remember it any other way and there was nothing she could do to change that now.

Something on her face must have shown her struggle to believe. Kuiil stopped between her and the front door, turning toward her again, though not quite meeting her eyes.

“He would help you, you know,” he said then, the words seeming to catch in the streams of sunlight filtering in around them and warming the air. 

It struck her off guard. Her heart misstepped. Her eyes questioned.

He nodded, more to himself than to her. “If you, too, wished to return home, he would help you,” he repeated, soft but sure, before leaving her to the sun and the profound weight of the implication.

* * *

“Mir’sheb,” Mando said, and not for the first time that evening, she was caught by the starkness of the language as it cut from both of his voices at her nearness.

He sat on the floor near her bedside, his back plate pressed against the edge of the mattress. She watched over his shoulder as he turned a viroblade over in his hand, the newly polished metal baring its teeth in the fire light. He set it down in alignment with the others spread across the ground, retrieving his cleaning rag up from his thigh and another longer blade, repeating the process.

“And that one?” She asked him, adjusting her cheek against the pillows to see him better.

His helmet tilted slightly while he worked, as if in thought. “In basic, something akin to a ‘know it all’.”

She could hear Kuiil’s scoff all the way from the kitchen.

“To put it mildly, I assume?” She asked with a raise of her brow.

“To put it mildly,” he agreed.

It was added it to her growing mental list of other words and phrases he’d taught her over the last hour or so, both the succumbing to her questioning and his position an effort to keep her still, she knew. But what held her attention most were the unsavory ones, the way the Mando’a language made curses sound somehow harsher than they already were.

“Slana'pir… mir’sheb,” she repeated choppily, putting together an earlier phrase he had offered with the most recent, and it earned her the comically abrupt turn of a blank sightline.

She could only hold it a moment with her own eyes before a true laugh parted her lips at the stunned expression even his visor couldn’t hide.

“I hate to interrupt such a lively conversation,” Kuiil started just before appearing in the doorway of the room, “but there is another that needs to be had.” He looked to Mando as if the words were heavy things as they left him.

Mando’s shoulders fell in a motion so small she would not have seen it if not for her closeness.

“It can wait until after dinner,” he replied.

And it made her nervous, something in the change of his voice sounding off to her ears.

“What can wait?” She asked them then, tilting up her chin to first eye Kuiil before turning back to Mando. 

For a moment, Mando just looked over at her, his helmet going still.

“Do you have it?” He asked a heartbeat later, that same odd dejection in his tone, as his sightline turned back up to the older man.

Kuiil nodded, reaching into his side pocket to pull out a small bundle of white material. He took the few steps across the space to Mando, who set the knife he was working on down at his side to take it from his outstretched hand.

Kuiil stayed where he was, crossing his arms over his chest and they both watched as Mando unwrapped the cloth across his palm, revealing the small rectangular metal chip. A single thin wire trailed from its base, the length of a sand rat’s tail.

And though she had never actually seen such a device in person, recognition struck her like a burst of brittle desert air, drying her tongue and stinging at the corners of her eyes. She pushed herself up to sit with her legs crisscrossed before her, her eyes never leaving the device that had been a part of her for so long. To see it held in plain view before her now…

“My chip…” she said vacantly, reaching out just enough to cue Mando in on her intentions. He leaned against the bed to face her better, his elbow resting on the mattress. She carefully pinched the tiny scrap of metal up from his palm. It was hardly bigger than a grain of rice and it left her bewildered; the idea that something so small and insignificant could possess the capability to be so destructive.

She cradled it in her own palm.

“It’s still active,” Mando said. “It has to be taken off world before it’s destroyed…”

“Or they’ll come here,” she finished, setting her teeth as the thought grew dark in her eyes. The back of her hand fell to rest over her leg. “We have to leave.”

“ _We_ don’t,” Mando corrected, glancing up to Kuiil and sharing something unspoken. It reignited the spark of nervousness in her chest. His visor turned back to her. “You have a choice. You could stay,” he continued quiet, and though her first instinct was to cut him off, to end the thought where it lay, she bit down and fought back against the start of something painful between her ribs. She tried to keep it off her face.

She had to have failed.

“It’s quiet here… off the grid,” Mando tried again, gesturing to the little one that busied himself with odds and ends near the foot of the bed. “We’re a moving target. There’s no sense in ridding yourself of one to keep the company of others. I can take the chip and decommission it properly on the way back to the Crest…”

He fell silent and for a moment she was lost for words. Without fully meaning to, she shifted her attention to Kuiil in search of some form of sense, only to find that his eyes had slid closed in his own small show of dissent.

She swallowed and tilted her chin.

“You’re right,” she said, “I do have a choice and I had hoped I’d made mine pretty clear.”

It drew no visible reaction from him. Kuiil shifted somewhere in her peripheral.

“It’s not safe Eira,” Mando finally replied, and though it was the first time he had spoken it aloud, she could hear a threadbare mask of concern break over her name as clear as the crackling of the flames. It gave her pause, taking a few heartbeats to settle somewhere between them.

“It never has been…” she shook her head softly. “You’ll need help repairing your ship,” A change of tactic that had always proved more fruitful with him, a sense of reason. She let her fingers lightly fist closed over the metal in her palm and met his sight. “I owe you that, at least.”

She braced for push back. Mando’s helmet shifted.

“You don’t owe me anything.”

And at the lull of his words she was left to search for the right ones to express how mistaken he was.

“But she _is_ right about the ship you know,” Kuiil piped up instead, earning both their regards. His stayed squarely on Mando. “The Crest is as stubborn as its pilot. It will be a hard day’s work.”

A blank sightline glanced between them, his contempt at the ambush clear as day.

Kuiil stood unmoving, his arms crossed tight beneath his chest and she willed her expression to match his candor.

Mando only shifted, resting more of his weight against the bed. His visor turned down.

Kuiil moved to make his way toward the door.

“That settles that then,” he spoke in a tone that bid no argument. “Let’s eat. We will ride to the market at sunup to prepare for your travels.”

* * *

The night’s chill had just left the air when Kuiil led them out to the stables the next morning. The blurrg grew restless at the sight of their caretaker nearing with their breakfast and it was only after they were properly fed and tended to that he asked Mando for help with prepping a trio with saddles.

They were larger ones of the herd, their massive faces low to the ground, but the highest point of their backs reaching well over the top of her head. It was different without a fence between herself and the creatures, and though they seemed tamed enough, something about their pointed teeth and snorted breaths of air made her tense.

They loaded the newly welded rotor and a bag of tools on top of one of the blurrg before Kuiil picked the child up from the ground, holding him in the crook of his arm. He hauled them up onto his own mount with the other, the movement flowing with a practiced grace that she already knew she could never claim as her own. The kid giggled at the quick rise.

She looked to Mando then, who stood beside the third blurrg, holding the reigns in one of his hands while gently patting the great beast’s neck.

“You may want to introduce yourself as well,” Kuiil said down to her, a hint of humor on his voice. “She has a tendency to get fidgety around strangers.”

“I know the feeling,” she murmured back before hesitantly heeding the man’s advice and taking a small step forward. Mando moved to the side, still holding tight to the ropes that harnessed the blurrg’s massive head. His sight followed her as she neared.

She only faltered a second before she reached out a palm, letting the beast sniff at her skin. It hissed a snarl in response and took a step back. Her hand drew away in quick reaction.

An amused sound passed from Mando’s mod and she shot him a look of steel.

Then she tried again, taking another small step toward the creature and this time reaching out with the back of her hand. She held it still in the air a few inches before the blurrg’s snout, allowing it to lead instead of react. It angled its great head, breaths blowing warm against her knuckles as it considered her. A moment later and she gathered the courage to press her hand flush to scaley skin, rolling it over to let her fingers trail in light paths between the blurrg’s eyes. They blinked up at her. 

“Hello,” she soothed, and the beast rumbled a warm sound deep from its throat.

Her eyes met Mando again with a prideful glean. He looked away. 

“Very good,” Kuiil said somewhere behind her and she glanced over her shoulder to watch as he started his pair of blurrgs forward, the child gripping the reigns where they slacked between the older man’s hold. “Let’s get moving before the sun’s too high.”

Mando rose up onto his saddle in a single swift motion, giving away that this was also not his first time.

It stilled her for a moment at the creature’s side, uncertainty drawing her brow, until he offered out his hand.

She took it, planting one of her feet against the strap of the saddle and a strong arm hauled her up to sit behind him. The small gesture brought on that same swell of warmth that was almost too much beneath desert sun. So she pulled her shawl up, cloaking her face from it and the wind-tossed sand.

At first she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands, letting them press against her thighs until Mando signaled the blurrg to move. Its wide steps rocked them to the point where she involuntarily reached out, fisting her fingers in the sides of his cape to keep from toppling over.

His helmet turned toward his shoulder.

“Takes a bit to get used to.” 

And the light taunt on his voice let her know he was thoroughly entertained by the whole ordeal.

She sent an unimpressed look to the back of his head.

“Care to share how you know that?”

And to her surprise, he did. A clipped but burdensome account of how he had come to find the little one at an enemy compound not too far away. Close enough that the idea of him being held prisoner in such a place, in such negligence, grew like a stone in her stomach.

She inquired after about his captor’s fates and Mando only tipped his chin in her direction as if she should already know. And a part of her did, but something beneath it still needed the affirmation.

 _Balance_ , Kuiil’s voice spoke in her thoughts.

Somewhere during the tale, her hands had unconsciously come to rest against his sides, the blurrg’s repetitive movement beneath them growing more manageable so long as she didn’t focus on it too intently.

“He’s lucky to have you,” she said then, peering over his shoulder pauldron to spot the pair a decent distance ahead of them. “And that’s how you know Kuiil?”

“Yes,” Mando nodded, adjusting the reigns in his hands. “He guided me... and helped me repair my ship.”

At the admission, she couldn’t help but recall a cold, dark night spent surrounded by mismatched steel.

“Jawa?” She leaned her head to the side in search of the edge of his sight, a smile more on her voice than lips.

“Jawa,” he repeated, the word sour enough to fully curve her mouth beneath its cover.

She settled more comfortably against his back.

“I like him,” she said after a moment, deciding so the very first night they’d been warmly welcomed into the Ugnaught’s home. It was a lovely change of pace from the constant turmoil. Something she knew she would miss as soon as they took back to the sky. “Though not enough to stay,” she added, soft but pointed, Mando’s offer the night before still an uncomfortable thing that splintered beneath skin when she thought on it too long. She liked to believe that if she burdened him, he would tell her outright, not come up with excuses for her sake. But sparse with words as he was, he was not one to lie. It was a trait she appreciated for its rarity. “Unless you prefer I do…”

She counted her heartbeats while she waited for his answer.

When he spoke, it rolled from both of his voices, velvet and warm as the hills of desert sand surrounding them.

“I overheard some of your conversation with Kuiil… about your mother.” He turned slightly as if to find her over his shoulder again. “You’ve never mentioned her before.”

She blinked, caught off guard. Her heart did something unpleasant in her chest.

“I’m afraid there’s not much else to tell,” she said, fingers flexing against him, the haunting echo of truth curbing her words. “As time passes, my memories of her fade… I can’t even remember the sound of her voice any more…” and her own trailed thin from her lips.

His helmet bowed an inch. “I’m sorry,” he said, and it was with a deep sincerity that she had come to learn could only be shown by beings who have been dealt their own fair share of suffering. It spurred her thoughts and made her curious.

“What of your parents?” She asked him then. “Are they Mandalorians too?”

With the question, her own mind tried to fathom what such an upbringing would entail, drawing only blanks. 

He was silent for a moment.

She could feel his ribs shift beneath her fingers when he took an uneven pair of breaths.

“No,” was all he finally said, but it was a muttered broken thing that slid her eyes closed, effectively answering both questions in a way that stole her own sorrow so that she shared his instead. She hoped he would keep speaking, hoped he would give just enough more to prove her conclusion wrong.

He didn’t, instead going quiet and rigid between her palms.

And it awoke a familiar feeling inside her, a crimson sort of rage, though this time it was staved off by the newfound desire to comfort in a way that she wished someone had done for her just after, when her own mother’s death was still a fresh festering wound, the pain it bore hardly tolerable.

Her movements were slow, careful, as she slid her hands from his sides to let them cross lightly around the soft padding over his stomach, just beneath his chest plate. Her cheek pressed against the bundled material over his shoulder blade. She held him a fraction tighter.

“I’m sorry too,” she gave soft, riding the short-lived but striking wave of chaos with him as it hammered through his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Vardos** \- the planet Vardos was saved from destruction by Commander Iden Versio of the Imperial Inferno Squad in the game Battlefront 2, which I am currently playing through and LOVING.  
>  **Mir’sheb** \- Mando'a for "smartass"  
>  **Slana'pir mir’sheb** \- Mando'a for "piss off smartass"  
> I had way too much fun learning these.


	13. Amends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just coming back to life after that season 2 finale. Hope you all had an amazing holiday and New Year! Your love and comments were genuinely a bright spot in my 2020. Thank you dearly.

The welcoming smells reached her first as they tied up their blurrgs, just beyond the outer lip of the sanctuary. 

Vendors of all kinds lined the walls of the tight gorge, orange mountainous rock towering high overhead on either side and staving off the hottest rays of the peaked desert sun. Even in their shade, it was sweltering, a dusty haze taking to the dry air, kicked up by the dozens upon dozens of occupants that swarmed the space, bartering and selling vast varieties of wears and labor. A soft wind whispered through the rock around them. Meat sizzled on a rotatory nearby, overtaking the scent of sand and drawing a small crowd of hungry customers at the mouth of the market. Kuiil stopped with the child to greet a few of them that he knew by name.

Beyond were booths and strung up tents of all colors and shapes, signs in all different scripts, some she could read and others she could not, though their intent to catch and draw the eye was clear in any language. 

It was _busy_ , the sheer amount of people around them more than she was used to now, well more than she was comfortable with. But there was a surreal beauty about the place too; deals and bargains being struck, the overlapping voices of individuals bearing all shapes and sizes helping their neighbors meet their needs. A group of Dressellians already sloshed on spotchka laughed and sang much too loudly from the open-air cantina. Human children played in a shaded alley beside it, their clothes scuffed by dirt and wear, but their smiles bright and unblemished. Free. 

And it wasn’t until they were well within the crowd that she began to notice the not so subtle shift of it. The way it started to hush around her, people glancing with wary eyes and moving to part from her path in a way that rose her guard, fingers curling on their own accord, one near her blade, the other beside her borrowed blaster. 

It was only when she followed a particularly concerned gaze from a middle-aged female shop-keep, one that met her eyes for only a moment before they ticked somewhere behind her, that she realized what was happening.

Mando walked a few feet off her flank, his steps unhurried and even, visor turned just far enough in the other direction that she could only guess he searched the opposite wall of shops for something specific. Even so, there was no way he could miss how the rest of the patrons paused from doing the same as they made pass, shooting them a variety of looks that ranged from curiosity, to distaste, to outright blatant fear. 

It was a strange phenomenon. It bothered her more than it should have.

Certainly, it was not the first time she had parted a crowd with a sense of malevolence in tow, but the looks her father drew had been deserved. Earned in a way that made the show of mistrust and revulsion a valiant display of resistance where anything more would earn only death.

But where Ghal would accrue a sense of pride, Mando seemed entirely unaffected.

She was not. He was not entirely deserving of such a reaction. A fact she now knew as indisputably as her own name, and the thought unwillingly dug up another; a time not so long ago when she was sure he found a similar look in her own eyes.

It made her mindful of the expression she wore now. She relaxed her fingers at her side, the perceived idea that they were in any sort of danger slowly morphing and settling into the much heavier presumed truth. That they were its source. Her lips loosened into a passive smile while she forced her eyes into something reassuring, sending the look back to the shopkeep who still watched them pass as if they were specters in the night.

It was merely a coincidence, but it felt like a small relief when she spotted what she was looking for in the next tent over. Cloth material, tanned for the desert conditions of all shapes and origins, hung along either side of the entry way. She ducked in alone, stilling a moment to let down her shawl and allow her eyes to adjust to the shade. She wiped the sweat from her brow and took in the space.

Stacks of blankets swallowed most of the rear wall of stone, similar to the ones Kuiil kept, thick enough to protect from the desert night and not much more. A maze of clothing lines cut across the rest of the open area, hemmed for all different species of beings and she took her time browsing through the selection in search of garments hearty enough to block out the worst of Hoth’s biting chill. It proved quite a challenge.

It wasn’t until the near end of her search that she heard someone else shuffle in quietly.

The same wary woman made her way behind the counter, eyes watchful as she passed, the unchanging look still fixed in them that she wore outside.

It irked her again. Moreso now that she could not place its origin, alone without Mando nearby. She tucked the small bundle of clothing she’d gathered more firmly over her arm. They were as well made and expertly stitched as the rest of the items in the shop. Especially when compared to the state of her own attire.

“I have credits.” Eira promised with the raise of a brow.

It seemed to catch the woman off guard, her eyes drawing to something near confusion. She stayed silent for a moment before sending a timid glance toward the entrance.

“Are they his?”

The quiet question rattled her where she stood.

“No… they are my own,” Eira said, just before the implication struck her fully. “What does it matter?”

The woman shifted where she stood, her soft features growing dangerously close to pity. Her eyes ticked down, searching.

“Do you need help?” The woman whispered, nodding forward to – well, all of her. “Did he do this to you?”

And in an instant, the dim glow of irritation vanished from her chest in a way that left her hollowed.

This woman was not concerned by Mando in the slightest. At least not at all in the way she had believed her to be. It was somehow so _so_ much worse. It made her recall her own reflection in the mirror. The wounds that marred her face. Her clothing ripped and strained. She could only imagine what it looked like to someone on the outside. Someone who had most certainly heard the legends and believed them as wholly as she had... Watching on as a Mandalorian mercenary, raw from the hunt, led his haul to market…

Her eyes widened. She took a pair of urgent steps forward.

“No, no,” her palm rose out in earnest. “It’s nothing like that,” and she willed her voice to prove the claim. “I’m fine. I am helping him.”

The woman blinked her disbelief. Her distaste.

“Helping him? He is a Mandalorian…”

“Yes,” Eira nodded, stopping the title before it could grow any fowler. She let her free hand rest light on the lip of the countertop between them. “But it was earned, I swear it,” she assured, meeting incredulous eyes and holding strong. “He has done me no harm.”

The woman’s demeanor lightened just the slightest, though something unsure still framed her face. There was no time to argue. To change her mind properly. Prove that her claims were so sincere that she could recall nothing more than the lovely hum that took to her skin whenever gloved hands met it. The foreign softness of calloused fingertips as they had traced over her scars in the pitch-dark night. The way the touch healed instead of harmed. 

The woman would think her mad.

So instead, she set the garments she’d collected on the counter, using them as a distraction from both the conversation and her own train of thought.

“Do you make these?” Eira asked, pushing her selection forward an inch and taking another look around the small shop.

“I do,” the woman returned, a soft pride slipping in the mix of emotions on her face, crinkling the corners of her eyes as she slowly started sorting through the pile before her, folding as she went.

“You have quite a talent.”

The woman faltered only a second before sending an appreciative look up at her and returning to her task.

“Thank you,” she said with a slight dip of her chin. “My mother burdened me with the trade when I was younger. It’s how I remember her now…” her tone turned thoughtful. “And how I hope one day my children will remember me.”

Eira tilted her head in question, ignoring the familiar stab in her ribs that came with the mention of anything maternal.

A corner of the woman’s lip lifted.

“They’re playing outside. You can hear them if you tune out the cantina,” she said.

And it was spoken with such a fondness that it had Eira searching the air for the sound and softly grinning too when she found it. “In the alley,” she nodded, recalling the contentment she had found there. Their crooked smiles perfect matches to the one before her now. “They seem happy.”

“It is peaceful here,” the woman agreed, sobering and sending her a look that she could not quite gauge. “We do what we can to keep it that way.”

The warning in the words, though, was unmistakable.

“Understood,” Eira returned evenly with a tilt of her chin. Because she did understand. Even though she already meant no harm, a mother with steel in her eyes was not to be trifled with and she had grown to carry a deep respect for the ones who knew how to wield it. She was a stranger in their home. Nothing more.

The woman merely nodded, totaling out the order, and sliding a datapad out in her direction for payment. When she looked back up, those same tempered eyes had gone wide and the way they darted up over her shoulder gave her just enough inkling of indication to keep from being startled.

“That’s not a good idea,” came Mando’s low voice.

She turned to find him standing a step behind her, the top of his helmet nearly brushing against the low hanging cloth roof. A new strap cut across his chest, the deep brown material crossing nearly perpendicular over his bandolier of bullets and stopping low at his left hip. The child rested comfortably in the satchel there, long ears half hidden by the material of his cape.

It took a moment for the sight to settle in her chest. When it did, she stepped aside the slightest bit to let the shopkeeper see for herself. Where words could not convince, maybe a small bit of evidence would.

His advice though was another trial on its own. Mando was right, she realized. Any transfer of credits could be tracked by those who knew how to decode the system and just being there already drew more attention to the place than she wanted. She would not leave a damning scar behind on a world so bright if she could help it.

Hopeful hands found her pockets instead, searching for what she had left of the golden peggats Maz had paid her for her brief stint at the cantina. She could sense Mando watching her effort, the endeavor producing a measly four dented coins before he spoke again, just as red began to flush her cheeks.

“Do you accept Republic currency?” He asked smoothly over her to the shopkeep who was still clearly not sure what to make of the scene before her.

“No,” Eira answered quick, though she did not know whether it was entirely correct. She was not fond of the idea of owing more than could be repaid. Especially in currency. She met his sight pointedly. “No,” she repeated softer. The four peggats clanked against the countertop almost mockingly as she released them to continue her search for more.

Mando stepped forward, tilting his helmet to look down at the number blinking across the datapad. He reached somewhere beneath his belt, pulling out a small satchel that dropped with a healthy weight against the wood.

The woman hesitated before she loosened the draw string, glancing inside. “This is too much,” she replied soft, almost breathlessly so.

Mando nodded over toward the neatly folded stack of clothes beside her arm.

“You undersell your skill.”

And the look it earned him then very nearly made her lose the edge of agitation that simmered low in her blood from the moment he’d neglected to not cover her shortcoming. A small victory where such things were rare and fleeting.

A second later and the capacity to feel anything other than terror was robbed from her chest.

A low rumble shook in the air overhead, quaking the ground and thundering through the canyon like a bellowing beast. The sunlight faltered and faded through the thin shade of the tent. The world just beyond hued a ghostly, glowing blue.

She only had a heartbeat to take it in, to crease her brow in confusion, before she was being thrown behind the counter, hard hands grabbing the material over her shoulders before the full weight of beskar followed suit and she was being flattened between it and the ground.

The world fractured, the explosion wracking through every single nerve upon her skin. The child shrieked somewhere close beside her.

The sudden sunlight was blinding, the shop’s structure crackling down around them, the thin material of the roof all but disintegrating in a fiery blaze. Shards of stone fell from the walls of rock towering overhead. A vambrace pressed down into the soft sand near her cheek, protecting her face from the worst of the raining debris. The bottom edge of his helmet dug rough against the bandaging at the back of her neck.

She couldn’t breathe, a combination of the burning shockwave as it rolled over them and the weight on her back, leaving her lungs stunted from drawing in air at the rate she needed them to. She exhaled instead, grains of sand sticking to her lips and stinging her eyes. They caught in her lashes when she tried to blink them clear.

Her hearing was gone. Replaced instead by a high, piercing ring that stabbed through her ears like clusters of needles.

Darkness was just beginning to threaten the edges of her vision when the air settled and Mando rolled off of her, his own chest heaving where he lay on his back at her side. The child clutched tight with both hands to the material over his ribs, shaken and disoriented, though visibly unscathed.

And for a while she could move nothing more than her eyes, her vision slow and hazy as she tried to assess the extent of the damage they suffered.

A deep groan rolled from Mando beside her and she could just make out his motion as he struggled to sit. She reached a hand out in his direction for purchase, her muscles hating the movement and pulling a pained sound from her own chest. A heartbeat later and his hands were on her, searching, one clasping high on her outstretched forearm, the other pressing up under the front of her shoulder.

Her rolled her over carefully, her back pressing heavy into the dirt.

“Breathe,” he said, controlled but firm, and she did all she could to obey, forcing air into her mouth though it tasted of sand and smoke and burned in her lungs like fire.

He looked up then, over her, head turning to scan the carnage beyond.

The ringing in her ears slowly began to subside, the shrillness dulling to a low static and it was only then that she heard the screams. Some young, some old, building and retreating and intermingling so well with the sounds her nightmares reproduced that for the first time in as long as she could remember, she silently prayed. Begged. _Pleaded_ with whoever would listen that that was the case now. That this was just a nightmare she was due to wake up from at any moment.

But when she blinked her eyes back open, Mando still hovered over her, his sight low on something just past her head, his body rigid where he knelt at her hip. So much so that she gathered the will to move, to figure out why, shifting her head against the sand just enough to see the woman gasping for air across the ground above her. Deep crimson saturated the desert sand around her neck.

Eira cursed, clawing against the loose earth for leverage to roll herself back over, onto her hands and knees. She crawled, resting back on her heels at the woman’s side and assessing the slit that ran deep into the side of her throat. _Pressure_ , her logical mind recalled somewhere in the haze. She pressed her hands over the woman’s slick skin, her palms just wide enough to cover the entirety of the gaping wound. Hot blood pulsed lazily between her fingers. The woman’s chest rose and fell too quickly, fighting for air that blocked passages would not allow.

“Your cauterizer,” she ordered, looking over to Mando, voice shaking along with the violent movement.

He shifted a fraction closer but was otherwise still.

His sight rose from her hands where they slipped and reset to meet feral eyes.

“It’s too deep.”

The words were thick as they left him, a conclusion in them that she knew was right. She _knew_. But when she met the woman’s fear-stricken gaze again and she looked up to her, only her, she wanted nothing more than to snatch the wretched tool from his belt.

A hand reaching out stopped the thought in its track, the woman straining to press her fingers over one of Eira’s forearms, a grounding thing that pulled from the panic building in her chest.

“The children?” She asked, all air as it worked from her lips.

Eira’s throat tightened, a stone building there that she fought hard to swallow for nothing more than to keep something reassuring on her face. She shifted up on a knee, looking away from the woman’s eyes just long enough to truly take in the surroundings for the first.

Injured patrons still scrambled out toward the mouth of the canyon, wails of pain echoing though it every so often as if the towering walls trapped and held their suffering. The market was all but leveled, the wooden remnants of the cantina burning across the way, nothing more than a black pillar of smoke rising high against the copper stone. The alleyway beside it was simply gone, piles of avalanched rock stacking high in its place where the explosion had knocked them free from the side of the mountain.

Maybe they had escaped before it fell.

They had to have.

Surely.

A sob swelled in her chest and she closed her eyes tight against it, drawing a greedy, horrid, unfair breath of air. She trained her face and sent a consoling look back down to searching eyes, the terror of anticipation there so thinly veiled that she felt it deep within her own soul.

Then she lied.

“They are fine,” she promised soft, her heart fracturing as she adjusted the woman’s head over her thigh, just above her knee. She cradled her neck between her hands, keeping the pressure there. Still, blood pooled into the light material of her pants. “They are heading to the mouth of the sanctuary with the others,” she nodded absently, her sight blurred, and she could _feel_ Mando’s on her, heavier than ever before.

The pain was every bit worth it for the sense of calm it draped over the woman’s features, the tension leaving her mouth and soothing her brow. Her head rested heavier against her leg. She brushed away a lock of hair that clung damp to the woman’s skin. “What is your name?” She managed, a tight whisper from her throat, because the need to know was sudden and all-encompassing, bearing witness to another life robbed so violently from this existence. This one though, she would remember. A list she had hoped to keep short and final, though it only seemed to grow as years passed.

The woman blinked heavy eyes up at her.

“Skya,” she coughed, painting her own lips red. Matching hands fell from her neck to hold her through the fit.

It ended just as quickly as it began, a final gasp of air bobbing through her chest and all at once it grew still. Glassy eyes slid shut, and Eira could feel the second the resistance left the woman's body, her frame going heavy in her hold. Her hands shook where they supported the new weight.

Mando slowly settled back on his heels at her side, his shoulders dipping, though he allowed her only a moment to process before he was pushing himself up to stand. He tucked the child back into the satchel at his hip, the position putting the little things eyes even in height with hers and she would swear their expressions matched.

“We have to go,” Mando said sharp, scanning the newly formed horizon. “They’re coming back.”

She heard him, the words met her ears, but she must not have move fast enough because a heartbeat later and there was pressure against her arms as he guided her up to her feet. “Hey,” he called sternly, finally earning her eyes. “Stay with me. Can you run?”

“I…” she shook her head faintly, struggling to gather it. She numbly wiped stained palms down the sides of her thighs. “Yes. Yes, I think so.”

“Good. We’re going to make our way back to the blurrg,” he instructed, waiting for her shallow nod of understanding before releasing her. “Stay in the rubble. And stay low.”

It just barely crossed her mind to collect what survived of the dust covered clothing up from the dirt before she followed.

* * *

The explosion had echoed through his helmet like a roar of thunder, the bone shaking hum that announced its arrival a familiar thing that had him acting on instinct alone when he’d thrown them beneath the scant safety the counter provided. Proton bombs were an Imperial go-to, used for decades by preliminary fleets to announce their arrival in a way that assured they would have the upper hand long before their ships touched the ground.

At first, he had thought they had come for the kid again. An unending onslaught that he had grown well acquainted with in the few months since he’d taken the child into his care. But while Eira had tended to the fading woman across the ground, he tried to look away for proof, scanning the air for the enemy ship. Too late though to miss her effort, a commendable, aching display. She knew it was futile. He could see it, her fortified expression resting on the precipice of splintering like an arrow drawn and aimed at still water.

Yet for reasons unknown to him, he let her try, forcing restless muscles still while he searched the skies, using the brief escape to conjure some sort of a plan. To fill his lungs with a proper breath of air, letting the explosion's heat and the memories it upraised cool from his skin. To take in what had just happened; the devastation that followed him as if it were leashed to his boots.

It was then that he spotted the ship, a dark fleck scarring the horizon. He tracked its heat signature, watching as it distorted and curved, turning to carve a path in the distant dust-thickened air before aiming squarely back in their direction.

The window for processing was quickly closed.

He had successfully led them deep into the cover of the market’s remains before the craft grew near enough to tell that it was not an Imperial TIE bomber as he had expected, but something sleeker, a pointed streamlined shuttle, regal wings stretching wide like a phoenix of the night. They raised and folded high against the sides of the cabin as it landed at the far end of the gorge, and it wasn’t until Eira went pale before him at the sight that he realized who could only be in command.

He pushed her lower behind the protection of the sheetrock in reaction, hand holding firm over her shoulder, just as the ships boarding ramp slowly fed out to the ground.

Ghal himself departed, steps sure and calculating as he descended slow onto the scorched earth and took in the state of the gorge. A small platoon of soldiers fitted in dark armor lined either side of his flank. And though Mando knew he should keep track of their pattern as they began to fan out in their search with militant like synchrony, he could only watch her.

She stilled like prey, captured by the sight as if she stood in the man’s shadow instead of well across the ravine. Her eyes were rounded, traced not only by fear, but _agony_ , raw and daunting and he remembered that look, though it did not reach him the same then. Not as it did now. Then he heard his own name as it fell from her lips, a quiet plea instead of the strength it usually carried, and though it was not the one given to him by the ghosts that still haunted his dreams, it affected him nearly the same, shaking him to the bone and pulsing hot blood into muscles accustomed to breaking them.

“Let’s move,” he urged, and she did so without hesitation. Kuiil would be waiting for them at the blurrg and they just had to make it back to him. The fight he wanted then was one he would not risk, not with such stakes, but the _want_ to flashed hotly in the space behind his eyes as he shifted the child’s pouch more squarely in front of him, keeping close at her heels.

Not now. Not yet.

* * *

It wasn’t until she spotted Kuiil just ahead, ushering beings out of the canyon that she slowed enough to catch her breath. He made his way toward them as soon as he spotted Mando parting through the crowd.

“We have to go. Now.” Mando said, chest piece catching and reflecting the sunlight above as he fought for his own air. 

“Take the blurrg to the ship,” Kuiil instructed. “They know their way home. I will stay here.”

“Kuiil…” Mando tried, his concern for the man clinging to the word like a weight. He was cut off by the lift of a hand.

“I am needed here,” the Ugnaught spoke almost roughly. “And the threat will follow you.”

His eyes shifted over to her then, the look in them much softer than anything she deserved. A brief reprieve from the unrest around them. Still, she waited for his wrath.

“I was going to give you this when I saw you off properly,” he said to her warmly instead, reaching into his chest pocket. “It was to be a gift for your mother, but I was recommissioned before we crossed paths again.”

In his hand, he held out to her a white shard of crystal, thin enough to be nearly clear along its edges. It caught the natural light and shimmered like a noble woman’s jewels.

She had just enough of her own volition left to her to take it carefully from his palm. “Kuiil, I’m…”

“Go,” he said, patting the side of her elbow before returning his attention to where Mando stood. The child cooed something timid at his hip. Kuiil’s eyes dipped to him for a moment until rising back up to find his sightline. “Take care of this,” he spoke in that tone that bid no debate. “And yourself,” he added, turning to make his way back into the worst of the crowd.

* * *

Most of their time amongst the stars was spent in silence. Not stifling, laced with anger or unease, just soothing, comfortable quiet.

Mando had kept his word, dropping her tracking chip from the ship’s airlock the second they were deep enough into uncivilized space to lead whoever followed to nothing more than a dead end. After, he had slung the tracking fob he'd used with a bit more force, the device shattering into flecks of debris where it hit the edge of the hatch before it was lost to space.

That night she finally grew desperate enough to find a proper shower, lingering a long time beneath the near scalding stream, not much caring about the consumption of resources upon the enemy craft. The long washroom was dormitory style, tiled floor and chilled steel walls, nearly reflective around her until they fogged and clouded with steam. But beneath the warm, constant pressure and cleansing water, she believed could feel every fiber of dirt and dust fall from her skin, finally lessening some of the pressure against it and her aching muscles.

The blood proved a bit more challenging. She washed every nook and line along her palms, meticulously scrubbing the rust colored stains from beneath each of her fingernails, enough there still that the pool of water near her feet tinted a soft pink over the white tiled floor. And though her attempts were thorough, she could still feel it thick on her skin, sheathing an unsettling mix of guilt and animosity.

It lingered well beyond that night, though her skin was purged and dressed comfortably for warmth in fresh, warm garments. It was a part of what kept words from her tongue as the ship tore through endless dark, growing closer to their destination with each galaxy they passed. As the days stretched, Mando didn’t make much effort to coax them from her either and a part of her appreciated it greatly.

Instead of speaking, he kept close, making a point to bring her a portion of whatever meal the child was partaking in before wordlessly departing to consume his own. Remaining in the pilot chair beside her well beyond the length of full planetary cycles, though the course to Hoth was set and automatically maintained. Sometimes he would turn and just watch her while she rested back against the rear wall of the control room, reading from one of the books Kuiil had stealthily tucked under the top fold of the rucksack of tools. They had been a pleasant surprise, an engaging distraction from her own cruel mind and the painful thing that would not settle between her ribs. And their discovery had been one of the few times they had spoken in the sky, her mentioning aloud that she did not know how she would ever be able to repay the old man’s kindness, and Mando promising that it had already been taken care of, though it required a bit of craft and slight of hand.

It dulled the ache a bit, mingling strangely with the other, angrier vices that clutched her so.

Her father was a monster. She had known so for a long time. But how long could she lead the chaos and destruction he bore in chase across the universe before she became one too? How many innocent lives had her pursuit of freedom claimed now?

For a short while, she tortured herself by actually attempting to recollect them. She could tally her attempts to escape Bakura on both hands, but their consequences were far graver. It squeezed her fists and stung her eyes, but she would cry no more. There were no tears left to give. Not for him.

* * *

The darkness kept its hold on her days later.

They had reached Hoth in good time, the sloping white terrain looking very much the same as the first time she had laid reluctant eyes on it. But now it was a sight to behold, the fresh breeze stinging at her face and feeling good in her chest where the unchanging air of the ship that carried them there had begun to grow stale and smothering.

Her hair whipped across her shoulders, the cold just able to touch her hands and skin, covered as they were in thick gloves and warm layers much more suited for the weather than the first time she’d faced its aggression. The snow had piled high around the Razor Crest in their time off world, leaving only its wings and the top curve of the roof peeking up darkly from beneath the sheet of white.

It actually aided in their effort, Mando only having to dig out the bottom half of the empty engine shell for them to access it, and she did what she could to help, watching closely as he showed her how and where to weld the turbine’s rotary in place while he held the heavy piece still. The torch only felt wrong in her hands for a short time until she got used to the function of it, the confidence that came with learning a new skill reflecting with the fire in her eyes and taking away another small bit of the shadow that tried to tunnel her thoughts.

“It is similar to the components of a lock in a way,” she mused later while they ensured that the blades interweaved and spun together without resistance. “Just much larger and entirely less subtle.”

It did not earn her his attention as he continued to inspect their work, but it did draw his lighthearted words. “Locks have never been an issue for me,” he said, and she couldn’t help but glance down at the few gleaming red detonators he kept at his belt. “These engines on the other hand…”

She fought the mild urge to roll eyes. “You know that isn’t what I meant,” she said, lowering herself to sit back against the inner curve of the engine casing. A thin sheen of sweat lined her forehead from the trapped heat of their work and her fingers ached from the tools of the trade, but Mando’s mood seemed to uplift with every part of the Crest put back into place and it lightened her own. 

“I know,” he said in that quiet, sincere way that let her know he truly did, likely anticipating the darkening of her thoughts as he surely had been for the entirety of the trip.

She fought to keep them mild.

“Besides, the mechanisms of locks and their silent undoing is delicate work,” the words were almost coy as they left her. “It would not suit you.”

And the gentle reprimand finally drew his sight down to her as he paused from his task.

“Are you… mocking me?” He asked her then, the question low, a forced sense of bafflement toying on his tone. It was new but flared that same simmer in her chest.

She grinned and rose a brow. “It’s only fair. You started it the second you handed me back my blade,” and her head tilted softly while she recalled their initial sparring lessons. How he would make a point to show her the weak points in her advances before critiquing and correcting as he saw fit. “With both words and action,” she added.

“Speaking of delicate…” he drawled in return, sending her chiding back to her, though it did nothing more than thin her eyes. She had been anticipating it.

Her arms crossed loosely beneath her chest, a new habit she had picked up from their time in the desert. She drew a shallow breath and forced it from her lips, sending it steaming in the air between them. “Funny, I remember knocking your feet from beneath you on our very first meeting.” At the claim Mando went very still, his hand going flat against the rotor blade where he had been passively searching for flaws along its edges. “Not so weak after all then?” She asked him with a tilt of her chin.

His whole frame turned towards her then where he stood, his armor catching and fracturing the natural light. “I did not say weak,” he corrected carefully, his attention a consuming thing when so entirely focused. His words, though, assuaged a bit of her pride when she thought them over a moment longer, their truth warm and tranquil.

“You did not,” she conceded, eyes going soft and arms slack across her ribs, and it was finally the soft affirmation that released him to return silently to his work. 

She turned her eyes away, instead watching restless flakes of snow tangle in the air just beyond the lip of the engine. And for a while, she let herself wish to be as sure about the subject of her strength as he seemed to be.

The sight of her father on the humble sands of Arvala was one that her mind still played on repeat like something broken and sadistic. The decimation, the _death_ , that always followed so close behind him. It was in her own blood it seemed, like a curse she could not be free of. And how could one possibly run from such a thing, she pondered, filling her lungs again with the frigid air, when it was at home beneath her very flesh.

There was no escaping the shadow then, not one that grew to crest faster than the sun could rise to meet it. It had been the hope of a child, a juvenile idea, that what she could not see could not hurt her. That if she was out of sight, Ghal’s reach could not extend to whatever edge of the galaxy she sought out for refuge. But now, grown as she was, it was as easy to tally each of the flaws in her own logic as it was to count the scars upon her skin.

The only way to clear a forest floor of overbearing shade was to burn it to the ground. _Cruel in design_ , her mother had told her once while they dirtied their hands together in the soil of their garden, stripping it of wild grown weeds, _though when the ashes settle and the sky clears, new life can grow and prosper._ And though the sentiment was not carried to her in her mother’s voice, not in the way she struggled to remember, it perfectly countered the rise of her heartrate, quieting her mind.

Something like balance, she thought, smiling sadly.

She looked back up to Mando then who must have deemed their work done for the day, as he too leaned a shoulder against the curved wall of metal, watching the low hanging sun beyond. The movement pulled his visor down to her, something on her face causing it to cock the slightest bit. She didn’t speak, not right away, so instead he lowered himself to reflect her position, his back reclining against the opposite wall, legs coming to rest close beside hers where he stretched them out before him. His attention never wavered.

Her face nearly tingled where she could sense his eyes searched, distractingly similar to how it felt beneath his touch. She swallowed, the building question feeling heavy at the back of her throat. Her eyes fell.

“Say it,” he said, an undercurrent of urgency in his voice that led her to wonder if he had been waiting for her to since they’d left the chard sands of Arvala. To speak that which was heavy in her thoughts, even still, in the cold air and calming company, reminding her again as well as the feel of his skin that a man of pliable flesh and nature lie beneath the steel of his helmet.

She straightened some against the wall at her back and met his sight.

“When did you first take a life?” she asked, the question carrying just over the whisper of the wind. He did not answer as the heavy silence stretched, instead remaining quiet and still. So she continued. “All this time I’ve tried to believe my hands were clean, but they’re not, are they?” She tried again, genuinely, a tight line shaping her lips as she searched aloud for answers she could not provide for herself. “How long can you trail in the shadow of a beast before you become one as well?”

His helmet tilted again in a way that exposed his consideration. His sightline stilled on her once more. A few heartbeats hummed in her chest before he finally spoke.

“You were not given a choice,” he answered her carefully, and it briefly reminded her of the first time he had taken it upon himself to broach a topic similar to the one she brought back to him now. One of forfeited choices and being robbed of the option to make them.

“When I was young, sure,” she still agreed easily, her mind already grasping and accepting such a rationalization long before she could shape into words just how lacking it felt now. “Leaving was my best option then…” she nodded faintly, accepting her own truth, “but how long can I turn a blind eye to the destruction that follows me? Even without my chip he will find a way… and what he did to Arvala… to those people,” her eyes slid closed, images of blood and fire racking fresh through her mind. She forced them open. “It is mild in comparison to what he has done and will continue to do to get what he wants.”

Mando was a statue of a man where he sat before her, still unmoving to the point that it lit that small spark of frustration all beings felt when presented with an indecipherable obstacle. She wondered how he looked at her then. If any of the answers she sought could be found in his expression where his words would not grant such a mercy.

“And what do you want?” He asked instead, a hitch to his voice as if he tried to draw the answer from her instead of willing her to forge it.

The laugh that sliced from her lips dripped with ire. “A full night’s sleep would be nice,” her eyes turned pointed, fit to strike though she faced no opponent. “Or not having to dread what awaits me in my dreams… or whatever fresh hell I might awaken to…”

He straightened slow with her words, his shoulders coming away from the wall, posture all but curving toward her like a bow, drawn and aimed. “What do _you_ want, Eira,” he asked again, ignoring her misplaced malice, his tone almost matching in roughness as it dug beneath her skin and _burned_.

“I hate him,” she finally scathed aloud, her jaw hooking at the sheer weight of the admission as it flamed on her tongue. “There was a time where there had to be some humanity left to him... There _had_ to be, or I would never have been born,” she spoke fiercely, as if to convince, though she felt no real desire to. “But that time has long since passed,” and she wore the remorse of acceptance on her face when she looked intently back at him, his visor a mere foot before her. “I hate him, Mando...”

“Din.”

And the word promptly halted her train of thought. At first she thought he’d spoken Mando’a again, the language a melody she favored for its sharpness on his voice at her bedside the first time she'd heard it, and again his modulator warmed this particular word like steel upon a forge.

Her eyes questioned, seeking its meaning.

“My name is Din.”

The clarification stilled her further. She showed her surprise only in the barest widening of her eyes, but in that moment her heart sung beneath her ribs. “Din,” she repeated quiet, testing it, both to fortify that he had actually just given it to her and to allow herself a break from the dark clutch of her thoughts to consider instead how fitting a name it was, stark and metallic on her tongue. “It suits you.” And there was no way to miss the quiet catch of his breath, near as he was, when she whispered his name back to him like something holy. He had saved her life twice now. Knew the troublingly complete history of both of her parents. Knew more about her than she cared to share with most. But the small show of trust by someone accustomed to living in shadow felt nothing short of a gift.

And it was as if the symbiont circle of their meeting clicked to place before her eyes. “I know what it is that I want, Din,” she spoke his name again, sure and steady in the frigid air, partially just because she could now, knowing well she would have to tuck it away somewhere safe and sacred once they left the protection of the solitude and snow. She filled her lungs, squared her shoulders, and found her center. “The deal my father made you for my return… I would like to alter it,” she started strong, only her eyes faltering down to details cut in his chest plate where something wouldn’t allow her to hold his gaze. “As you know, he has actively fueled the Imperial effort with resources since well before his rule and now uses their repaid weapons to bring terror to anyone who resists. He has become blinded to it, more monster than anything man…” and she forced her eyes up to his sightline again, hoping that he could read past the fire in them.

He assured her he could with the slow raise of his hand. A soft leathered fingertip ghosted along the curve of her right brow, mindful of the scar that centered it. “If I accept your offer, do not make the mistake of believing it’s for his allegiances,” he said, warm as the sun. And as she fought the desire to press further into the barest of caresses, it dawned on her that this is what he had been waiting for. The favor he had searched for in her silence in the sky. A reason to unleash that same pent-up rage trapped beneath his armor that she had watched slowly release his frame after they’d first left Hoth, only to hold him prisoner again, ever since they’d dragged themselves from the smoke and rubble. To fix that which he deemed broken in the only way he was raised to. “What are your terms?” He asked her then, letting his hand fall to rest back in his lap.

And for a moment she had to silently contemplate the question. Her heart was a new life in her chest, beating so brightly beneath her skin that the space around them should have glowed. Not because of his receptiveness, an intense thing in its own right, but because of his reasoning. _For her_ , it beat again and again, attempting to convince. _For her_. There was a strength in it that drove her to continue.

“I would like to return home,” she spoke simply, an easy truth unearthed with a bit of guidance in the desert sun. Her gaze grew pointed. “…safely.” She added, letting the weight of the implication shape the word. “For now, I only have my word to offer in return, but the temple is filled with a vast array of wealth and resources... More than enough to have your ship repaired properly and tend to the child…”

His helmet softly bowed before she could finish the offer.

“I accept.”

It stole her heart and steeled her blood. It silenced her but sung within. It felt like balance.


End file.
